


vivaria

by Anonymous



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst, Blood and Gore, Crimes, Dark, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Experimental Style, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Psychological Drama, Surreal, Unhealthy Relationships, Unreliable Narrator, Yuri!!! on Ice Shit Bang 2017, twisted and fucked-up, yoishitbang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-22 01:58:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 30,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11957325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: You don't know about love, but you know about need and making sure he never leaves you.  A story about people, screw-ups, and people who are screw-ups.





	1. Menarche

**Author's Note:**

> [list of warnings](https://pastebin.com/f1Cta3T1), in order of spoileriness. please note it is not an exhaustive list. this work is not a nice work. please read at your own discretion. thank you. all chapters are completed, it will be updated throughout the day.

"What aspect of sin does Faust's seduction of the beautiful Gretchen represent?"

There's metal at his throat and sixty eyes on his skin. Viktor smiles in that hungry cat way, perfectly aware that Yuri hasn't heard a single word of his lecture on some dirty old man who couldn't keep it in his pants.

"Stupidity," he says, raising his eyes to meet Viktor's underneath his hood. "Maybe he'd have gotten off a little easier if he'd the brains to suck the Devil's cock."

Viktor's gaze is cold steel. Yuri sees him turning over his options - detention, public humiliation, calling his parents.

Then he draws the ruler away from Yuri and smiles. "It can't be easy to tempt the tempter, who has thousands of writhing bodies at his mercy in Hell."

Yuri shrugs. "Chinese Emperors had thousands of concubines," he says. And yet as many of them fell.

"Human oppression and inhuman subjugation are not quite comparable," Viktor says.

"He got fucked over by God as much as the rest of us," Yuri says. "We're not that different."

Viktor blinks, then leans in and presses their foreheads together. Yuri digs his nails into his thighs and does not give Viktor the pleasure of his reaction. Viktor draws back. "Hm," he says. "Doesn't seem to be a fever." He flicks Yuri's forehead and gives a lazy grin. "Is it puberty?"

The chair clatters against the floor as he stands. He swings his bag over his shoulder, making sure it smacks against Viktor's shoulder as it sails through the air in an arc. For good measure, he kicks the table down too - Viktor steps out of the way without batting an eyelid.

"Fuck you," Yuri says, and walks out the classroom.

"Only if you practise safe sex!" Viktor calls out to his retreating back.

Yuri storms down the corridor, anger rolling off him in waves. Fuck this, why does he have to waste his time at some stupid shit-shed of a school surrounded by narrow-minded ignorant idiots and teachers with fuses shorter than their dicks? There ain't jack shit they can teach him, and whatever they can he has no interest in learning. Shit, he should just do them all a favour and torch this entire place.

He slams into someone, sending their books and papers spilling all over the floor. "Hey, watch it - "

"Oh no," Katsuki, the suckup school counsellor, hurries to pick up his things. He tugs at a flyer, only to find it stuck under Yuri's feet. He raises his head, apologetic. "Sorry, do you mind?"

Yuri rather likes this position. He grinds the flyer into the ground and makes sure to step on Katsuki's hand as he walks away.

He takes the rickety fire escape stairs to the top level and picks the lock on the door that opens out to the rooftop. The wind whips his hair around his face and cools the heat off his skin, raised with both goosebumps and sweat. He shucks off his blazer, undoes his tie, and rolls up the sleeves of his drenched shirt - still unable to escape the oppressive heat.

Is there any way to escape it? Maybe if you peeled all your clothes off and stripped off your skin. Maybe if you jumped twenty stories into the sea.

Shit, he's almost out of cigarettes. He could lift some from the 7-11 on the way home, but he doesn't want to risk seeing the guy he blew in the toilets last week on shift. Or he could blow him again, call it payment for a smoke. Shove a lit cigarette up the guy's urethra and blow up the entire gas station or some shit. Clear out the cash register before he goes. Snatch up the flashiest car there and drive a thousand miles right off a cliff.

Where's his lighter? Fuck. Where the fuck is his lighter?

"Eek!"

He jerks his head up, searching for the source of the noise. Leroy and Yang are tangled together on the bench a short distance away, hair a mess, clothes rumpled, faces flushed. Yang practically leaps off Leroy (Yuri can't blame her), attempting to fix her - everything, really - all at once. "Sorry," she says. "Um, I'll be going first, JJ."

"Bella, wait - "

The door slams shut behind her.

Yuri snorts. "Jesus, Leroy," he says. "You in heat or something? Can't wait to prematurely ejaculate your idiot genes all over the place? At least give the human race another decade or so before you end it."

Leroy laughs. "The kitty's angry today." He leans forward, student council president smile on his face. "What's wrong, Yuri? What do you want?"

"Your bleeding corpse on the pavement," Yuri says. He spins the cigarette held between his fingers. "Might almost feel as good as a smoke." He gives Leroy a sideways glance - his eyes are on the cigarette. Yuri rolls his neck. "Gonna report me, Pres?"

"I'll have to catch you with a lighter," Leroy says. He pulls his hand out of his pocket and opens it out towards Yuri, a shit-eating grin on his face. "Maybe something like this?"

Eh. He's not even surprised. "Oi, toss it here then."

Leroy raises an eyebrow. "I thought only dogs played fetch? You should come over here and get it yourself."

Another one of those stupid tricks to make himself superior. Yuri can't give a fuck, has stopped giving a fuck a long time ago. He crosses the gravel rooftop floor towards Leroy and sticks his hand out for the light.

Leroy grabs Yuri's collar and grins. "I'll give it to you," Leroy says, "After you suck me off."

Yuri decks him.

They tumble to the ground in a flurry of punches and kicks. Leroy seizes him by the hair and slams his head into the ground. Yuri jams his elbow into Leroy's stomach, taking advantage of his wheezing to throw him off. He gets to his feet and aims a kick at Leroy's face, only to hit the ground on his back when Leroy yanks him to the ground by his ankle.

He smirks. "I think I like this position," he says. His fist collides with Yuri's face with a cracking sound. Yuri coughs, but gets cut off with another punch. His head is spinning, blood pounding in his ears, body burning on a stake. The pain of being alive.

Fine. He was in a mood to hit and be hit.

He slams his knee up between Leroy's thighs. Leroy recoils. Yuri flips him over, snatches the lighter up from where it's fallen to the floor, and flicks it open right by Leroy's face.

Leroy freezes.

The flame flickers between them. "I think I like this position," Yuri says. His face is doing something with his mouth where the corners twitch upwards. He straddles Leroy's waist and drags the lighter across Leroy's face, barely centimetres away from the fragile ski. The flame illuminates the sweat beaded along his brow, the prickly hair standing on his face, the scared, stupid look in his eyes. He'll burn it off, hair and skin and flesh until those bones melt into ooze dribbling through sewer grilles like come from pretty lips.

All these people-pretending wax machines. He'll make mausoleums of them all.

It laughs nervously from underneath him. "Yuri," it says. "Calm down, it was a joke - "

"Shut up," Yuri says, bringing the lighter back to its eyes. It squeezes its eyes shut, hands shaking, heart pounding and Yuri wants to rip that right out of its chest because harder, _harder_ , you think this is terrifying? You can be so much more scared.

He lets the tongue of flame lick Leroy right up.

Satisfied once he's burnt off all the eyelashes on Leroy's left eye, he stands up and lights his cigarette.

Leroy scrambles to his feet. "Well, I'll be filing a disciplinary report shortly," he says, backing away.

The door shuts, and Yuri is, once again, alone beneath the deep blue sky.

He leans against the parapet and exhales, watching the sun inhale the writhing smoke - universal shotgunner. Adrenaline and nicotine send their bastard children sailing through his veins and for now the pain is a distant dream.

From here, he can see most of the campus grounds. The kids in their cliques joking and shoving and trashtalking at each other. The couples swinging their arms between them as they walk. The boyfriends and girlfriends and sugar daddies and actual daddies shaking their legs by the school gate waiting for an awaited person. Teachers yelling after students to remember their work. People living like it's the easiest thing in the world.

His lungs fill with nicotine. He exhales.

"All happy people in the world should just go die."

***

He likes taking the subway after a fight, the eyes of passengers skittering off his bruises as they shuffle away. They flinch when he meets their eyes and scowls, like well-trained dogs and isn't that why it _reeks_ in here, rut and drool and defecation.

He zips his hoodie up over his face and presses back against the train doors, as far from the mob as possible. Lets his mind wander like he always does on days like these where the heat roasts putrid packed meat.

That big guy in the basketball jersey fucks his opponents with a broomstick over warm-up benches a week before playoffs. The man with a mismatched tie is sleeping with his boss. His boss has a daughter. His coworker beside him embezzles charity funds to pay off his debts. At some point he will blackmail his parents for money. The woman asleep on the seat behind him is skipping town with blood on her hands. The kid playing Pokemon next to her got the game from a nice older brother his parents don't know he visits every Sunday. The doe-eyed, pigtailed stalker in a pleated skirt is on her way to buy ropes and rat poison. The middle schooler staring at his feet has an a salaryman's hand spidering under his shirt.

The train slows to a stop, like shit stuck in sewers. Yuri doesn't move away from the doors, imagining them opening to spew him out into the nothingness of the city, his body impaled upon a classy hotel's lightning rod. A thunder storm could burn him at the stake.

He steps through the doors into the underground station, the sea of people dragging him through until he's staggering blindly into open sunlight. His feet move on autopilot while the rest of him folds itself up far, far away from the world.

There's a lonely, narrow street that putters its way up a hill. Houses squat on either side of it, loose-tiled roofs hanging over, windows and doors tucked close to itself, patio drawn up against crackling thighs as it shits on the pavement.

The house swallows him in. He kicks off his shoes and drops his bag down onto the floor next to them. A moment's consideration, and he peels off his socks (you know, some people have a fetish).

He darts into the living room and leaps onto Otabek's lap.

"Y-Yuri!!"

Papers go flying everywhere. Otabek catches his laptop with the hand that did not automatically wind around Yuri's waist to hold him up.

He exhales and glances at Yuri. "Shouldn't you be at school?"

"Shouldn't you be at work?" Yuri says, sinking into the couch, letting his head loll back against the pillows.

Otabek turns his laptop towards Yuri, the screen open to today's stocks, the rise and fall of people's fates drawn on a line. "That's what I was doing," he says. He sets it down on the coffee table, next to a dozen annotated magazines and newspapers, and sighs. "Was."

"Lunch hour anyway," Yuri says, wiggling his toes against Otabek's thigh.

Otabek furrows his eyebrows. He leans in and cups Yuri's jaw, canting his face up for a closer look. "You're hurt," he says.

"You should see the other guy," Yuri says, nuzzling into Otabek's palm.

Otabek raises an eyebrow. "Leroy again?"

"He's a bastard and everyone associated with him is a bastard and he will have stupid ugly bastard children," Yuri says with a huff as he crosses his arms over his chest.

Otabek smiles. "Wait a moment," he says, and crosses the room to the cabinets, standing on his tiptoes to rummage through them, shirt riding up to flash a thin strip of skin.

Ah hell.

"Wait no," Yuri says, scrambling up, "I'm fine - ow! Ow!"

"Don't move," Otabek says sternly, swiping the alcohol-soaked cotton ball across his injuries.

"Shit, it stings," Yuri says, squirming. He freezes when Otabek presses down onto his hipbone with a large, warm hand.

Otabek's bent over Yuri on the couch, cleaning up Yuri's wounds like he's doctoring war, his measured breath washing over Yuri and scattering the dust of the world gathered over his skin. Eyes of reforged bronze cut right through him more than any punch or knife could. There's a crinkle in the middle of Otabek's forehead Yuri knows he put there. Half of him wants to reach up and smooth it away; the other half wants Otabek to crease and deepen with every one of his touch.

His heart twitches.

Otabek packs the first-aid kit away. "You shouldn't fight," he says mildly.

"How'd you get so good at fixing people up anyway," Yuri says, probing at the tender insides of his cheek with his tongue. "You the one fixing your buddies up when you guys got into fights?"

Otabek shuts the box with a click. "Wasn't often," he says.

Yuri swings himself upright. "Liar," he says, kicking lightly at Otabek's shin. "I know you used to be some punk ass kid."

Otabek pinches Yuri's nose until Yuri shoves him away. "Being a delinquent isn't as cool as you think."

Yuri grins. "You know what's cool though? A motorcycle - "

"No."

He tugs at Otabek's sleeve. "Come on," he whines. "Just a quick ride round town."

"I have work," Otabek says.

"I'll make dinner," Yuri says.

"Your mother - "

"Gonna be home late," Yuri says with a dismissive wave. "Come on. You don't want me getting into trouble while you're not looking, do you?"

Otabek gives in, as he always does. Yuri tries not to think too hard about whether it's pity or guilt or something else.

Otabek's body is warm against him as they speed through the city. The wind swirls around them, sounds of the city vanishing with the dust. If he closes his eyes they might be an asteroid tunneling through the galaxy to punch the fuck out of this shitty planet.

If only the rest of the world and every possible destination crumbled, they could stay like this forever.


	2. Nymph

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katsuki gives him a sideways glance. "You're not normal, though," he says. "You're special, aren't you? It's a pity he can't see that."

"Don't worry, she's only about 80% dead," Georgi says as he drags a white sheet over his mother's body.

The door clicks shut behind him. Light flees through the crack, from empty glasses on a coffee table, a snapped stiletto, a black tie snared in a blacker bra.

"Hm." He pulls his hairtie off and shakes out his hair. "How much of that's the alcohol, and how much of that's her shitty fucking stamina?"

Georgi levels a contract-closing, legs-opening smile at him. "It was a tiring shoot. She's taking a short break."

"You better hurry then." Yuri squats down next to the rumpled pile of clothes by the couch. He yanks her wallet out of her pocket and tosses it to Georgi, who catches it, though sadly not with his face.

He glances at the wallet in his hand and raises an eyebrow before placing the wallet back onto the couch. He straightens, and recoils when he catches sight of Yuri's face.

"Yuri!" he says. "What happened?"

Yuri shrugs. "I walked into a lamppost."

Georgi's eyes widen. "That's terrible," he says seriously.

"Yup," Yuri says, rummaging through his mother's handbag. He pulls out a tube of concealer and squints at it. "Ugly ass lamppost too."

"What are you doing?" Georgi asks, suddenly right by Yuri's back.

He snorts. "What else could I be doing with concealer?" He flips open a compact to study his reflection. Georgi continues to hover by his shoulder.

He snaps the compact shut and shoves the concealer in Georgi's face. "Hey, Director, you do it for me," he says.

Georgi glances back at his mother's prone form. "Why don't you - "

"She likes Chanel better than Gucci," Yuri says, tapping the tube of concealer against Georgi's nose. "And she likes Gucci a hell lot more than waking up. Don't tell me they let you direct a movie without knowing how concealer works."

A muscle in Georgi's face jumps. A little like those whack-a-mole games. He takes the tube from Yuri and carefully swipes it over the bruise.

"Done," Georgi says, drawing back and Yuri yanks Georgi by the collar down as he lets himself fall, bra wire and cold marble against his back, tit-sized hands braced on his chest.

Georgi leaps off him, burning red. His Adam's tangerine bullfrogs and he says, "It really was a tiring shoot - " button up your shirt, grab your coat, the walls have eyes and they'll turn you to stone, "I'll be taking my leave now, if you'll excuse me."

He sniggers as the footsteps fade away. Fucking idiots, all of them.

He ransacks her handbag for the usual roundup of suspects, laying them out on the dresser table. He contemplates his reflection in the mirror. Georgi didn't do too bad of a job with the concealer. A face used to covering up hits.

He does his makeup in backstage darkness. He's a rarer breed of snake; doesn't shed skin but congeals flesh. He sharpens his jaw on the whetstone of a contour brush, enough to cut diamonds. Pink and red on the apples of his cheeks. They will believe him as blooded as them. Purses his lips into peaches, sweetness of the easily bruised.

He clips in the hair extensions that fall down to the middle of his back. White cotton dress, bell sleeves at his elbows, dainty lace at his knees. Ballerina flats he changes out for ballet shoes.

Something you'd have fun grinding into the mud.

The usual spot happens to be right along the route he followed Beka through today. Yuri perches on the cold metal railings, hotels, city, houses, prey in sight.

He looks youngish, but fits into his suit like lube to a cocksleeve. Harsh jawline, thick eyebrows, undercut with sleek back hair.

Yuri reaches out and hooks a finger through Mr Exec's beltloop as he passes by. "Hey," he purrs. "Are you free? Wanna keep me company?"

Hook, line, sinker.

The hotel Mr Exec chooses still uses thrust and twist keys. Stripes of leaves trail down the yellow wallpaper, invisible fairies ducking between the bars.

"You use the shower first," Yuri says, flopping down onto the bed.

Mr Exec chuckles like a third-grade summer reading list book character. He shrugs his jacket off and slips off his watch. "If you want to save time - "

Yuri yanks him in by the tie and smirks. "I got all the time in the world."

Two minutes after the water starts, he sits up and pulls out the wallet in Mr Exec's jacket pocket. He finds a picture of a pretty lady with a baby on her lap, dated last year on the back. There might be more credit cards than paper bills, more business cards than credit cards. Oh, so he works in software development.

He pockets the wallet, slinks out of the room, and doesn't stop running until he hits the crack of the ass of town.

He blows a good amount of money at the arcade trying for a toy he wants. Loses some more at pachinko. He buys an overpriced decaf soy-whip matcha latte or some other, and throws it away half-full.

Idiots, he thinks, as he picks up the tenth capsule off the floor of the gachapon machine. A maneko phone charm with defective daruma eyes. He aims a kick at the machine. How many does he have to buy before he gets the one he wants, dammit.

He shoves it into his bag beside the shoplifted cigarettes and straightens.

The jaundiced light from the lamppost beside him illuminates kohl-lined eyes and the shadows beneath them. A black choker and shirt stands in sharp contrast to his skin, almost ghostly in the moonlight. Yuri can't help but trail his eyes from sharp collarbones to long legs hugged by skinny jeans, just to check they end with feet on shit and gravel.

When he raises his gaze Katsuki Yuuri is staring straight at him.

His heart stutters.

Katsuki steps forward. "Hey," he says gently, like Yuri's a spooked deer. "Are you lost?"

This motherfucking piece of shit what the fucking hell.

Yuri's got an impulse control, anger control problem and he's right up in Katsuki's face with a hand fisted in his shirt before he even realises it.

"Think you can show me the way, then?" he sneers.

Katsuki pushes him off and staggers back, blinking.

His lips twist into a smile. "Only if you think you can take it," he says, and closes his teeth over the pulse of Yuri's heart

***

"Do you like being called sensei in bed?"

More than one a night feels like tempting fate. Moreso that any second Katsuki could recognise his face.

"Not particularly," Katsuki says, tapping the key card against the door.

He licks his lips. The anticipation is almost better than the fall.

The moment the door shuts, Yuuri has him pinned to the wall by his wrists, knee between his thighs, lips hot against his neck. Teeth break his skin, salved with spit that feels more like a drawn-out breakdown into constituent elements. It stings.

He shoves Katsuki away. "Eager," he says, hand flying to his neck. He bites back a grimace as he brushes his fingers over slick and tenderness.

Something flickers in Katsuki's gaze. He grazes Yuri's knee with his second and third finger, the touch like salted ice on a wound. He smiles. "You sure it's not you?"

Yuri knocks his hand away. "No, shower first."

Katsuki threads a hand through Yuri's hair, smiling faintly. He takes a strand between his fingers and rubs it.

Yuri flinches. "Hey, I said - "

Katsuki draws back. "I used to do them too," he dusting his hands off. "In high school. A penalty game for the lowest grade, that kind of thing." He pats Yuri's head almost absently. "Kids like you really shouldn't do these kinds of things. It's dangerous."

Yuri bristles. "I'm not a kid - "

Katsuki brandishes a bus card, blue, colour-coded for high schoolers. Yuri's hands fly to his pocket. "When did you - "

Katsuki takes Yuri's hand and places the card in it. "You should go home," he says. "If you don't want to go home, I already paid upfront for the room. You can stay here for the night."

Yuri snatches the card from his hands. "Fuck you," he says. "I don't need your goddamn charity. You get your kicks outta throwing scraps at people or something?"

Katsuki turns, back to Yuri. "No," he says. "It's just what I would have wanted someone to do for me, back then."

He blinks. He drops his hands down to fiddle with the straps of his bag, biting his lip, searching Katsuki's face for any sign of a lie. But Katsuki's face is, as always, open and earnest. Irritatingly so.

Yuri bites the inside of his cheek. The counselor and vice-president favourite of his school, a money-grubbing pillow-biter? This is too good.

He releases his white-knuckled grip on his bag. "So this some kind of karmic compensation or something?" he says.

Katsuki raises an eyebrow. "Compensation for what?" He picks up the room service menu and flips through it. "The decisions I made as a student were stupid, but I don't think they need punishment." He meets Yuri's eyes over the top of the menu. "Neither do you."

Yuri grits his teeth. This is far more dangerous than if Katsuki turned out to be just another dick-brained man. Fuck, he'd rather let someone in his ass than his head.

Like he'd let Katsuki beat him so easily.

Yuri snorts. "So you think you've stopped making stupid decisions." He sets his bag and sweater down on the table and sits cross-legged on the bed. "But here you are."

"You're a lot like me," Katsuki says, ignoring him.

Yuri throws a pillow at him. Katsuki ducks. "How the hell am I like you," Yuri says.

Katsuki steps in close, supporting his weight with hands on the bed, caging Yuri in. His eyes are somewhere faraway. "Unable to breathe in the house you grew up. Crushed under someone else's imposed emotions. Empty inside and terrified of it." He strokes Yuri's hair. "You want to feel something. You want to make someone else feel something." His knuckles graze Yuri's forehead. "Anything."

Yuri bats his hand away. With less force this time. "You know jack shit about me," he says.

"I know a lot about people like you and me," Katsuki says. "It's the same thing."

His lips brush the shell of Yuri's ear. "How's your mother doing?"

Yuri recoils. "You - "

_Don't let him win._

He clenches his fists by his sides and takes a few long, deep breaths.

He raises his head to fix his eyes on Katsuki. "What about you," he says. "Who's the unlucky asshole you're sick for?"

Something flickers in Katsuki's eyes. _Bullseye._

Katsuki sighs and sits down on the bed next to Yuri. He crosses his ankles. "The type who's popular with anyone," he says, almost wistfully. "Who wouldn't give a plain-looking person like me a second glance normally."

"Normally," Yuri echoes.

"More than normal, I'm very mundane, aren't I?" Katsuki laughs. "The type to chase after people who look like the person they're actually after."

Katsuki gives him a sideways glance. "You're not normal, though," he says. "You're special, aren't you? It's a pity he can't see that."

Yuri flushes. "The hell are you talking about," he says.

Katsuki laughs and waves dismissively. "Ignore me then," he says. "I'm just blabbering nonsense to myself." He straightens his clothes and stands up. "I'll go - "

Yuri's clamped down on his wrist before he even knows it.

"Eh...?"

Yuri blinks, then jerks back as if burnt. "I," he says. "I didn't - "

Where do people who have nowhere to go, go? Like holding your breath in the waiting room with a wait number 0 when they're on 100.

Katsuki just looks at him.

Yuri takes a breath. "You're right," he says. "I'm lonely and stupid and angry and empty." He surges forward and slings his arms around Katsuki's neck. "So," he says, thinking of a low voice and rough hands, "Fill me up."

Katsuki pries Yuri off. "No," he says, avoiding Yuri's eyes. "That's not right - "

"Fine, it doesn't have to be you," Yuri says. "Yeah, maybe I'll let some drunk pervert do me in an alleyway and get all kinds of diseases. Maybe he'll call his friends over - "

Katsuki inhales.

"...already forsaken," Yuri says. He glances up at Katsuki. "Or are you older than I thought? Shit, you got erectile dysfunction, old man?"

Katsuki presses him against the sheets. He slides one hand up Yuri's skirt, sparking chills all along Yuri's inner thigh. "Who was your first?"

Low, petroleum-oil laughter, scarred palms and tanned ankles, that unchanging undercut, a jawline like a blending of colours asking to be smoothed over with a gentle touch.

"My mother's boyfriend," he says.

Katsuki kisses the inside of Yuri's ankle. "What happened? Did he take advantage of you?"

Yuri closes his eyes. "I seduced him," he says, lips curling into a sneer. "It was summer. I stole my mother's clothes and slept with the window s open."

"What did he do?"

Yuri presses his hand to the back of Katsuki's neck, right on the knot of his spinal cord. "My literature teacher always said," he says, guiding Katsuki's hand up his thigh, "To show - "

"Don't tell."

***

The evening light filters through the windows, imprisoning dust motes in mid-air. The classroom, absent of students, is bleached of colour but for the single man sitting at his desk at the front of the classroom.

"Somewhat of an outcast," he murmurs to himself, thumbing through the pages. "Possibly - family problems. A fragile support network."

He spins the pen in his hand and taps it against his lips. "Has difficulty connecting to people. Desperate for attention."

He pulls a folder out of his brief case and lays it open on the table. A hundred over photographs in colour, dated and annotated. None with the subject ever looking into the camera.

"A little obstinate. Feisty." He trails his fingers over the glossy, unblemished photographs. "And of course, a pretty dirty little face."

The computer pings with new mail. He slides over in his swivel chair and opens it. The attachments begin to download immediately.

"Hm." He smiles. He retrieves his phone from his jacket pocket and dials.

"Hello? I think we've found him."


	3. Cyphonautes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It flows from the connection between their hands. He completes the triangulation between shadow and reflection. Natural turn. Running spin turn. Oversway.

Against his pale skin the thin band of gold gleams. Yuri sits up with a grimace, the sheets slipping off him, eyes roaming the figure next to him.

More than once in a night is rare. But this - has never happened before.

Katsuki's dark hair spills across white sheets like an oil slick Yuri can imagine devouring himself. His head is thrown back against the pillows, that long pale column of neck with a serrated edge drawn by freckles and sunspots. Yuri leans forwards and trails his fingers from cartoid to the clavicles - and his fingers are sharp, and he could go further, split him apart and pop out the peas of the pod. If he can't have apples, pomegranates, or the downfall of mankind - he'll swallow Armageddon down with seedless semen.

He bends over, picks up Katsuki's other hand, and brings it to his lips. He takes Katsuki's fourth finger into his mouth, and bites down beneath the knuckle, right where a ring would rest. And slips out the backdoor with cold air zipped up against his glass chest.

It's not until he's on the bus that he realises he's lost his maneko.

***

He drags himself to the locker rooms, where he showers and changes into the spare uniform he keeps there. Or at least, attempts to. He runs out of energy halfway through buttoning up his shirt and slumps down onto the floor, and stays with his knees tucked under his chin for a good five minutes.

Fuck it. Who gives a shit about trigonometry anyway. Who cares about anything. The world is full of idiocy and scars.

He changes into a t-shirt and his track pants instead. He packs everything away neatly into his locker, all of it.

He's so tired, he doesn't even realise his body's moved itself to the dance studio until he hears the music.

Weird. It's far too early for anyone sane to be here, let alone the dance club. He presses himself against the wall and peers through the heavy glass door.

Silver hair swirls around his pirouetting figure, silken threads of a cocoon falling away as he moves into an arabesque.

Viktor, their annoying, melodramatic literature teacher, dances?

"What the hell," Yuri mutters.

Not quietly enough. Viktor glances up and smiles at Yuri, even gives him a little wave, the fucker. Yuri colours and turns on his heel to go.

A hand clamps around his wrist. "Yuri," he says. "What are you doing in school so early?"

"I just couldn't _wait_ to start learning," Yuri snaps.

Viktor's smile widens. "Perfect," he says. "I have just the thing for you."

"What are you - whoa!"

He stumbles as Viktor yanks him back into the studio, hips twinging with pain. Strong arms around his waist stop him from hitting the ground with his face.

"Hm." Viktor frowns. "I thought by your looks you would have more grace, but - "

Yuri shoves him away. "You're the one without grace - " he bites back the _dumbass_ , " - what the fuck kinda arabesque was that? Shit, my uncle's cat could do better."

Viktor beams. Yuri realises what he said, and colours. He really gave himself away too easily - he'll blame it on the exhaustion. He blames much of his waking hours on his half-asleep ones.

Viktor turns away from Yuri and begins a sequence of steps. "Ballet was never my strong suit," he says. "I preferred standard ballroom."

"'Preferred'," Yuri mutters.

"I don't dance much anymore," Viktor says over his shoulder, as if Yuri cares, what the fuck. "My legs aren't as they used to be."

"Right, you're an old man now," Yuri says, crossing his arms over his chest.

"And yet I still dress better than that Mr Lee," Viktor muses as he turns into a chasse. "He's on the wrong planet, not just with his clothes but - " he taps his upper thigh with his palm, " - down here too."

Yuri balks. The circumstances behind Lee Seunggil's supposed resignation aren't talked about, nor the fact that it coincided perfectly with Class 3B's Phichit's - well. Mucked police shoes treaded the hallways for a few weeks, but eventually everything faded away.

" - and Macintosh! I'm sure that man sets half his exam questions drunk. They're occasionally capable of being a challenge even to idiot, which is already far above his level." He moves into a whisk. "The students I can bear, I get my revenge during report card season - like that, what was it, Jimothy Johnson?"

"Jean-Jacques Leroy?" Yuri says, almost automatically.

"That one," Viktor agrees. "Has no concept of aesthetics and belongs in a construction site. Hopefully in a concrete mixer."

Yuri can't help it. He laughs.

Viktor glances up, and his face falls. He steps forward - way too close - and cups Yuri's jaw, brushing the pad of his thumb across Yuri's cheekbone.

_"Yura - "_

He turns his head away. "Creeper," he says.

Viktor laughs. "You said you couldn't wait to start learning." He holds out his hand. "Shall I teach you how to dance?"

His hips scream in protest (along with his pride and immune system against grossness). "Pass," he says. "Got no interest in old man stuff like that. Next thing you'll have me playing golf and going bald."

Viktor's eye twitches, his hairline a sensitive point as always. He sighs and turns away. "I suppose our height match-up isn't the most compatible."

"What - you calling me short!?"

"Relative to me, yes," Viktor says. "Our skill levels as well - it would be unproductive for me to - "

Yuri hooks his hands around Viktor's neck and sways his hips, more Latin than Standard, gnashing his teeth as pain shoots through his hips.

Viktor pushes him away easily and claps. "Not bad," he says, "Considering it's probably one of the most basic steps in ballroom dancing. Good job."

He steps forward and rests his hands on Yuri's hips. "Bring your hips forward more," he says. "Good." He kneads Yuri's shoulders, drawing a hiss out of him. "Relax," he says with a laugh. "And you could look less like a pit bull preparing to maul someone. Latin is about _sexiness_ , after all."

He turns and takes Yuri's hand into promenade. "Follow my lead," he says.

It flows from the connection between their hands. He completes the triangulation between shadow and reflection. Natural turn. Running spin turn. Oversway.

"You've taken ballroom classes before," Viktor observes. "Abroad?"

He didn't realise there was a palpable difference. "Yeah," he says. "Before here."

"I do miss being abroad," Viktor says. "Prague is beautiful this time of the year. Although I've always been partial to Austria."

What the hell? So not only is Viktor some kind of expert dancer, he's an expert dancer who's been all over the world? Yuri can't figure him out - why he's stuck in a has-been city like theirs, why he's eking out a living beating idiocy out of idiots, why he's _here_ , right now, doing this with _Yuri_ , of all people.

"Ballet, ballroom, harp, piano," Viktor says. "Is there anything you haven't done?"

Yuri flushes. Somebody _noticed_.

"Not harp," Yuri says. "Violin. Vocal training and some theatre, too."

Viktor smiles. Yuri has a feeling he knew that already. "You're talented, Yuri," he says. "Have you thought about your future - ow!"

Yuri lifts his foot off Viktor's toe. "Oh, sorry," he says.

Viktor waves dismissively. He reaches forward and squeezes Yuri's shoulder. "There's supposed to be a parent-teacher conference tomorrow," he says. "I know your mother's busy with her job - she didn't come last year - but this is an important year for you. You need to start thinking about your future."

He ruffles Yuri's hair. "None of us stay children forever."

Bile rises in his throat. He steps back. "I - I'm going," he says.

"Yuri," Viktor calls out. "That was beautiful. I'll have you dance for me again soon."

It's when he's in the toilet, scrubbing his hands raw with soap, that he sees it, resting above the collar of his shirt, swollen and blatant even metres away. A pulse point caged by a circle of teeth.

***

The house is dark when he gets home. Half the reason she'd even chosen this house was to "entertain" her guests, from A-list directors to bright-eyed dropout models. The hallway stretches out in front of him, the ribcage of a beached whale.

He collapses onto the couch, throwing an arm over his eyes. Future. What the fuck is that? How are you supposed to imagine yourself years from now when you never even believed you would still be here, ten months ago? The furthest he can see is himself mooching outside the convenience store with a stolen watch in his pocket, hood thrown up against the August rain.

(Blue-lipped and tossed by floodwaters in some canal. Still slippery wet enough for one last fuck lying in the ditch.)

He grabs the nearest object - the TV remote - and hurls it against the wall.

Shut up, shut up, everyone should just _shut the fuck up_ , he didn't even ask to be here, why can't they just - leave him alone to rot in style. Why can't they just all go die.

He tastes copper. He pulls his hand away from his mouth, blood welling up around a torn nail.

"Fuck," he says. He stands up, and crashes right down to the floor, sending papers, discs, and photographs flying.

"Fuck," he says again. And lies there for a while.

He picks up a CD case by his hand and turns it over, squinting at the barely-legible writing across the scratched surface.

_Yuri, ballet, april '07_

He takes the disc out of the case and snaps it in half. That's what he intended to do - he ends up crawling towards the TV set and shoving it into the player.

'08. '10. '13. A small blonde boy spinning across a stage with a smile Yuri wants to peel off his face with a paring knife. No. He's surprised himself that they haven't clawed their way out the screen to slit him open stomach to throat. A movie that was named after a ring.

He closes his eyes, head pillowed on tabloids and pornos and lost underwear. She recorded everything up till the year he stopped.

Everything.

He was the only one who ever saw the things they let happen between nothings.


	4. Gestation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything about this wedding dripping with whale fat.

The clothes, his mother hisses into his ear every chance she gets, cost two months of her salary. The shirt itches and the vest is stiff. It's uncomfortable, which means it must be the height of fashion.

Everything here is the height of fashion - chandeliers dripping crystals from the vaulting ceiling, champagne older than his grandfather shimmering in glasses, tablecloths of gold and caterwauls of flowers. 

It must be. Shotgun weddings are so last season.

After she tires of dragging him by the wrist and introducing him to bags of meat or sacks of money (they blur together after a while), they sit at their table with a cousin Yuri's never seen. The seat on his right is empty.

" - ah, in the end the doctor said he still wasn't well enough," Mother says with a smile that doesn't betray the rest of her sentence - _and even though Mila was the favourite_.

The first people to go up on stage are the soon-to-be couple (he's not too sure on the technicalities and doesn't care to know them). Mila's in an elegant yet chic dress that doubles nicely as an advertisement for her upcoming line. It complements the suit on the mannequin next to her. 

He tunes out her speech and systematically shreds the paper napkin on the table into even squares. After they finish, a man and a woman the emcee introduces as friends of Mila's step onto the stage. 

A love song he's heard a million times on every radio. Couples leaning into each other at tables, some of them surrounded by children. A fairytale of calculation.

He kicks the table leg. "Tch."

Eventually, his mother herds him to the stage. He sits before the open maw of the piano, gills turned up to the air. His fingers moves across the keys, coaxing Pachelbel out of dried bones. Mechanical, an input of neurons to an output of muscles.

It itches beneath his skin. Everything about this wedding dripping with whale fat. They're a dead crew in a sunken ship marrying corpses off to the fish. 

If only he could send them all to hell.

At the thirtieth bar he flicks his wrist and embellishes with an ornament not supposed to be there. Out of the corner of his eye he sees his mother start in her seat and pale. It takes all of his concentration, improvising on the fly and transmitting it to his fingers - he narrowly avoids slipping up a few times. He purges the skeleton of its song, fierce and steady like implosions of geysers.

His hands slip off the keys from sweat. He stands up and bows, heart a pounding bass. The guests clap and cheer.

Louder than they did for the previous performers. He licks his lips and smirks. _Good_.

His mother wastes no time. "What were you thinking?" she hisses. "This is your aunt's wedding, how could you disrespect her like that?"

"I didn't - "

"It was terribly immature of you to try and steal the show at her expense - it's her wedding, not yours!" She glances furtively around. "You think I didn't notice? All the way here you were sulking - "

"You were the one who wanted - "

"Excuse me." A man steps forward, angling his body between the two of them. 

Her expression changes like a slideshow image. "Otabek," she says warmly. "I'll have to apologise about my child's behaviour just now - "

"No need," he says. He turns to Yuri. "That was impressive. Your song moved me."

He looks at Yuri with an expression it takes him a while to place - sincerity. Admiration. _Liking_. It almost makes him lose his balance.

"No, I - "

Another song starts up. Otabek reaches forward, hand stopping just shy of Yuri's. "Would you care for a dance?"

Wouldn't it piss the hell out of her if he did?

"Hell yeah," he says with a grin.

Otabek pulls him away from her before she can react. They're swallowed up by the crowd, a swaying colony of dead polyps - and spat back out, Yuri falling against Otabek's broad chest before Otabek catches him with an arm around his waist. 

He doesn't move his hand from Yuri's hip. "I did ask for a dance," he says.

"You got ditched already?" Yuri says, but slips his hand into Otabek's anyway. "Whatever, as long as you can keep up."

A hint of a smile. He brushes his lips against Yuri's hand. "I'll try my best, your highness." His other hand comes to rest on Yuri's shoulder. "Although 'Commander' might be more fitting. You looked ready to rain hell on everyone."

His eyes are the ocean in autumn at night. Driftwood, sailboat, campfire. Yuri can't tear his gaze away.

"Good," Yuri says defiantly. It only serves to amuse Otabek even more.

"That wasn't the original," he says. "You improvised on the spot?"

"Yeah," Yuri says.

"I like it," Otabek says. "It sounded like a war cry."

Yuri blinks, and barely avoids stepping on Otabek's toe. He moves into a natural turn, eyes and pink cheeks turned away from Otabek.

"I've seen your ballet before," Otabek says. "Your eyes were that of a soldier prepared to die in battle."

Yuri colours. "That's a little - " he turns his face.

"I admire that," Otabek says. "It is too easy to get tired when you have to fight every day." 

Is he that transparent? What else - is he -

"Ballet," he says quietly. "And piano, and ballroom, and singing, and theatre."

Otabek nods.

"It's tough, and it's really annoying, you know?" he says with a huff. "She's the one who cares, not me." 

Lock step. Inside partner step. Heel turn. Lead and follow.

"You're a good child," he says. "For trying to make them happy."

Grandfather smiles at all of them, his ballet, his piano, his singing. And even if she doesn't, Mother comes for all his recitals. 

"I like your ballet," Otabek tells him. "I want to see you dance your own dance one day.

Yuri looks away and shrugs. "We'll see," he says, and turns to go.

He pauses.

"Sometimes, I think I like it too," he says.


	5. Ontogeny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's flowing into him from Otabek. The rhythm inside him - the beat of his heart, strain of his muscles, pulse of his nerves - the song inside him, music as no one but Otabek Altin hears it, the world only he sees.

The show must go on, even if the rest of the world has ground to a stop. Moreso, in fact. For when the world is ending people will have no longer have anything but the rape and refuge of fantasy.

He doesn't stop, even when he sees no familiar face in the crowd. He's not Schrodinger's cat, he's the one holding the box. The stage scurries beneath his feet, the air buoys him up into leaps, the winds spin him like a top. On the stage, you are not human, only performance.

Backstage, while parents and teachers fuss over his classmates, he retreats to a corner and cleans off his makeup. Like shedding skin. He gathers his things and leaves. Nobody sees.

He doesn't have enough money for a taxi. He might be able to wheedle a ride out of the bus driver, but even then, the nearest stop is a good half an hour away from their house. It's an unfamiliar part of town, but if he asks around he might be able to -

Otabek smiles when he sees him. "Yuri," he says, pushing off from the wall he's leaning against. "That was a beautiful performance."

Yuri gapes. "What - what are you doing here?"

"Your mother was - " he hesitates, " - occupied. I offered to take you home."

He flushes and steps past Otabek. "You didn't have to," he says. "I'm not a kid. I know how to get home on my own."

"The train station's in the other direction," Otabek tells him.

His blush intensifies. "I knew that," he says.

"Let me take you home," Otabek says. "You want to get back in time for dinner, right?"

"That's a stupid reason." Yuri scoffs. He shoves his hands in his pockets and walks away. "I'll just heat something up like usual."

Otabek easily keeps pace with him - damn his longer legs. Damn his own late-blooming self. "There's no one at home?"

He spins around, eyebrow cocked. "Hah?"

Considering Yuri had to find out about his parents' divorce from the papers, he can't believe Otabek wouldn't know anything about it.

"I thought, at least a housekeeper," Otabek says. He looks away. You can't ever pay someone enough for privacy and discretion.

He glances back at Yuri, rubbing his neck. "Hey," he says. "Do you want to come over?"

"I don't - "

"I have a cat," Otabek says, and Yuri has to physically stop himself from leaping onto his back.

The motorcycle is a surprise. "You can ride it?" He stares at it, wide-eyed, hands twitching with the itch to touch. "Cool..!"

A smile tugs at Otabek's lips. He tosses Yuri a helmet. "Hold on tight," he says.

He can't remember the last time he was this close to someone. Hugs are difficult when there's a fungal network of tubes and between him and grandpa; physical affection is cheap and overdone when you do it for a living. Not that he cares, he's too old for it.

The city looks different without a barrier of blurred glass. The colours brighter, details finer, lines sharper. Otabek takes sharp turns, sudden accelerations, and Yuri can feel Otabek smile when he yelps in surprise and tightens his grip around Otabek. He makes sure to squeeze extra hard in revenge.

From the outside house is a modest one, not flashy enough to draw attention unless you already knew its contents.

"Pardon the intru - cat!"

"Her name is Potya," Otabek says, as he hangs up his jacket. Yuri lets Otabek tug his jacket off him as Potya purrs in his arms.

"She's so cool," Yuri says, bumping his nose against Potya's.

Otabek kneels down behind him and reaches over his shoulder to scratch Potya between her ears. "Do you have one at home?"

Yuri scowls. "Mama doesn't like pets," he says. "Says they're a nuisance that can't earn their keep."

"Hm." Otabek draws back and studies Yuri's face. Yuri concentrates on ascertaining the rise in purr volume when moving from Petting Area A to Petting Area B.

"This house is in between UA and your home," Otabek says. "If you like, you can come see Potya anytime you want."

Yuri blinks up at Otabek. "Seriously!?"

"She likes you already," Otabek says. He exhales in what passes as huff of laughter for Otabek. "A lot more than the house."

Beige. The walls, ceiling, floor, are all the same beige, with variation only in shadow-shaping light. The couch in the centre of the living room has a protective canvas sheet thrown over it. Boxes line the walls, some half-open, with random objects strewn across the floor beside them. The walls stare at him blankly.

Otabek reaches forward and ruffles Yuri's hair, the faintest of a smile on his lips.

Yuri stays for dinner. Otabek makes noodles from a packet, but adds leek so it's okay. He nods and hums at the right intervals while he listens to Yuri rant about his stupid classmates. He shows Yuri his music collection and lends Yuri his music player. He beats Yuri soundly at Mario Kart.

He tells Yuri to come again.

***

He stops by Otabek's house on his way home from school, every other day when he has nothing better to do. 'Every other day' becomes 'nearly every week day', and - he won't admit it but - he can think of nothing better.

It's better, at least, than either of them returning to a house with a stomach bigger than its mouth.

He does his homework while Otabek works, and actually scrapes a passing grade for Math this time. He falls asleep in warm spots of sunshine and wakes up on the couch covered with a blanket that smells like Otabek. He weeds the garden while Otabek waters the plants. He raids Otabek's fridge until Otabek drags him to the supermarket, buys his favourite foods, and forces him into making dinner together. He doesn't leave and Otabek stays.

He's raiding Otabek's music collection one rainy afternoon - having already uncovered Otabek's Vocaloid phase and his 12-year-old songwriting attempts - when he comes across a dusty, unnamed vinyl.

Otabek pats his shoulder. "Hey, did you find what you were looking for?"

"What's this?" Yuri says, thrusting the vinyl into Otabek's face.

"I forget, you're a 2000s baby," Otabek says. "It's a vinyl."

Yuri smacks his chin lightly with the vinyl. "I _know_ that," he says, annoyed. "I meant, what's in it?"

Otabek takes the vinyl from Yuri, and crosses the cluttered room to the gramophone on the other side of it (perks of being an above-average earner married to an above-above-average earner). He places the record onto the gramophone. Sweet, soft notes drift towards them from the record player.

Yuri frowns. "That doesn't really sound like you," he says.

"It was a gift," Otabek says.

Otabek's eyes are soft and looking right through Yuri, as if he's a ghost. It pisses him off, so he gets to his feet and falls into a chaines turn.

Otabek raises an eyebrow, amused. "What are you doing?"

"Dancing," Yuri says, struggling not to feel embarrassed. "Isn't that what people did in your time, you old fogey?"

Otabek covers his mouth with his hand. "Yes," he says. "But more like this."

He steps forward and offers a hand to Yuri. "May I?" he says.

Yuri sees himself in Otabek's eyes and, ah, this is proof he exists after all. He takes Otabek's hand.

_Fly me to the moon  
and let me play among the stars_

"Our place of contact," Otabek says, squeezing Yuri's hand. "Is called the 'connection'."

It's flowing into him from Otabek. The rhythm inside him - the beat of his heart, strain of his muscles, pulse of his nerves - the song inside him, music as no one but Otabek Altin hears it, the world only he sees. Drop by drop into an empty well. Each drop eating away at the soil.

_Let me see what spring is like  
on Jupiter and Mars_

The room around them blurs into colours. It's 1920, the jazz band is playing on stage, his dress shimmers with his movements while Beka leads him through a dizzying world of bootleggers and smokey speakeasies. Alcohol-tipped laughter and midnight recklessness and something you can only feel with the threat of a cage.

If he can't have some world other than this, if he might have some time other than this -

"Where'd you learn to dance like this?" Yuri asks.

_In other words, hold my hand  
In other words, darling, kiss me_

"Mila," Otabek says. He shrugs. "For functions and things."

Yuri jerks away, burning. His stomach churns; words crawl up his throat.

"I'm going home!" he says, and leaves before Otabek can stop him, before he lets Otabek stop him.

The next day, the record is still on the player. Yuri takes it off. Yuri takes it away.

***

Yuri buries it in the back of his closet - he doesn't have a gramophone, anyway, idiot - and ends up wasting away days lying in bed with Sinatra chipping away at his skull.

He doesn't know why he took it. Otabek doesn't mention the vinyl again, and maybe that's more than enough proof that he never needed to take it.

He spends hours putting together mixtapes for Otabek, and even more hours taking them apart. What the hell is he doing, he doesn't even know.

Otabek pirates scores for the theme song of the horror survival game they both like and they learn a duet, Otabek on the keyboard and Yuri on the violin. They push each other on the swings in the playground by the park (well, Yuri tries, at least). Yuri drags him shopping where he blows Otabek's money trying to get a stuffed tiger at an arcade, following which Otabek blows even more of his money buying a stuffed tiger, at least twice the size of the arcade prize, from another shop. They eat parfait and macarons and mille-feuille in fancy cafes.

Yuri lies awake some nights, choreographing for two people a dance to Frank Sinatra, in a room apart from space and time.

***

He's on his usual route to Otabek's house, dawdling in the supermarket because he doesn't want to seem too eager, when he spots the 20% discount sign over some beef.

Otabek likes beef stew. Sweeter than most people would have it, and the meat just a little firmer. He picks out the rest of the ingredients he needs. Yesterday, there were potatoes in the pantry; soy sauce in the fridge.

He walks to Otabek's house, humming as he listens to the playlist Otabek made on his phone, the hot sun beating down on him, the weight from the groceries digging into his sweat-slick palms. He feels strangely light - he can already see himself, as he unlocks the door, kicks off his shoes, yells for Otabek who will hide a smile as he helps with the groceries -

"Yuri?" Mila glances up from the pot of beef stew simmering on the counter, a ladle in her hand, a _kiss the cook_ apron around her waist.

The bags abruptly gain a few stone.

There's the sound of footsteps Yuri would recognise anyway, descending from the staircase. "Yura!" Otabek says. "Sorry, you don't mind having dinner a bit earlier do you - "

"Wh-what are you doing here?" Yuri blurts out. His head hurts. _She lives here, idiot._ "I mean - " he coughs, "Is it really okay to slack off on work?"

Mila waves the ladle (rather dangerously, considering). "It's fine," she says. "Sara's a very capable secretary."

"She threw up in the office," Otabek tells Yuri, which gets him an elbow in the stomach.

"I'm fine, I told you already," she says. "I'm pregnant, not dying of cancer." She sighs and turns back to Yuri. "Oh, Yuri, what are - "

"What?" He follows her gaze to the weight in his hands. "Oh. Ah - I - I went to get some groceries on the way home. I thought I'd stop by." He shuffles his feet. "I gotta go now - "

"Wait, but - "

"Sorry," he says, "My mum wanted me home early."

"I see," Otabek says and dammit, could he have come up with a more unbelievable lie? "I'll see you out - "

"It's fine," Yuri says. He jerks a thumb in Mila's direction and smirks. "Make sure the hag doesn't throw up."

It rains on the way. He has an umbrella but his hands are full. He counts the shoes at the doorstep before he gets in.

He eats too much beef stew and goes to bed that night with a stomach ache.

***

He starts to watch them. How they walk and talk and laugh. How they dress. How the world allows them to fall in love with boys.

How they throw themselves away for boys. How they throw boys to the wolves. How they get on their knees and get right back up. How they bleed and break and laugh, laugh, laugh.

He starts to learn.

***

_Hospital._

Maybe he sent it to the wrong person, maybe he hit 'send' before finishing, maybe he's already forgotten Yuri exists - Yuri picks up his bag and dashes out of the classroom into the streets anyway.

One word, one smile, one gesture from him and Yuri would tear apart his life for him.

He finds Otabek hunched over on a chair outside the operating theatre, fingers steepled together under his chin, mouth a thin, white line.

The woman seated beside him, with a suit and long hair pulled back into a braid, stands up and steps towards him. "Yuri? I'm Sara Crispino," she says. "I work for your - "

"What happened?"

She bites her lip. "The baby - "

Yuri falls to his knees and grabs Otabek's trembling hand. "Beka," he says. "Beka, I'm here - "

Otabek doesn't say anything for hours. It's only after - after the doctor tells them what they already know, after Yuri's mother tears herself away from work long enough to make an appearance, after Yuri's run out of tears -

"Yura," he says quietly. "I wanted to call her Yura."


	6. Chorion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katsuki blinks. "Didn't he tell you? The parent-teacher conference - "

"It looks like the set of a bad detective thriller in here."

He opens his eyes and sits up slowly, back and hips aching from a hard floor and a harder fuck. "Mother," he says, voice rusty and cracked. "You're back."

She slips her heels off her feet and her wig off her head. "No need to sound too disappointed," she says.

"Were you visiting Grandpa?"

"I couldn't clock out before visiting hours ended," she says. She glides across the room, fussing over the mess as she goes.

Yuri blinks. "Your face - "

She presses a fine-boned hand to her cheek almost absently. "Fine observation," she says.

Irritation flares in him. "Not smart," he says. "An actress getting her face ruined."

"Nothing some makeup and airbrushing can't fix," she says. Her lips twist into a smile. "I can't quite say the same for his career, though."

Not ruined, but his ruin.

She stops in front of Yuri, catching sight of the discs lying around on the floor beside him. Annoyance flutters across her features. "If you must take something out," she says. "Put it back. Especially ugly and old things like that." She sighs and bends to pick them up, only to change her mind and stalk towards her bedroom instead. "Clean up," she says over her shoulder.

"Wait," he says.

She stops. "What is it?" she says, a formulaic compound of exhaustion and exasperation injected into her voice.

"Tomorrow, I - " his hands drop to his side. "No. Nothing."

He can't possibly waste even one minute of her time, after all.

"Hm. If you say so," she says and locks the door behind her.

Yuri puts himself to sleep dreaming up a choreography for two people to the soundtrack of the end of the world.

***

"Don't touch me," Yuri says as he slaps Katsuki's hand away from his shoulder.

Katsuki pulls back and turns his hand over, blinking at it as if it'd moved without his command. The silver watch glints as it catches the light. Yuri swallows. His skin where Katsuki's graceful fingers grazed him - those fingers days ago dragging screams out of him - burns.

"Sorry," Katsuki says with a generic smile. "Vi - Mr Nikiforov told me to get you."

Yuri tightens his grip on his bag. "What for?" he says testily.

Katsuki blinks. "Didn't he tell you? The parent-teacher conference - "

"My mother's not coming," Yuri says, turning to go.

"Eh? But there's a man - "

Yuri whirls around. "What? Where?"

"Your classroom - "

His feet pound against the ground, heartbeat loud in his ears. It can't be. Grandpa -

He skids to a halt in front of the classroom and throws the door open, panting. Mr Nikiforov sits with his back to the door. Yuri only catches a glimpse of broad shoulders and dark hair - it can't be, not after all these years -

"Yura?"

His knees buckle beneath him. Hands steady him, his back against a warm chest. Yuri shoves Katsuki away almost absently, unable to tear his gaze away from the man in front of him.

"Beka," he says, strained. "What are you doing here?"

"In the event of the parent not being available, a close relative or guardian is an acceptable substitute," Katsuki says, nudging Yuri forward with a hand pressed to the small of his back.

Yuri jerks forward. "He's not - he's not," he says.

Viktor glances over the class registry set out in front of him. "It says he's your uncle."

"That doesn't - "

"Yura," Otabek says. "Please sit down."

He inhales shakily and lets Katsuki herd him to his seat beside Otabek, every touch a scourge as punishing as it is salving.

"Then, as we were saying," Viktor says, shuffling through the papers, "Yuri's grades - leave something to be desired." He sets out a slip of paper in front of them. "These are his results for the mid-terms. As you can see," he smiles, "He failed every subject apart from Math."

Yuri clenches his fist. "So what - "

"Please don't interrupt me," Viktor says, holding up a hand and smiling pleasantly, a glint in his eyes. "Additionally, he caused a disturbance during the practical component of his Chemistry exam, which invalidated his results. As for the Literature paper," he exhales, "He completely failed to turn up."

"I had a fever," Yuri says.

Viktor flips through the class registry. "The paper was on the 15th." His gaze flickers over to Otabek. "Yuri has not submitted any doctor's note for verification."

"I see," Otabek says, after a strained pause.

"This is stupid," Yuri says, his heart crashing against his chest. He makes to get up from his seat. Otabek pushes him back down without blinking.

"Please continue," he says.

Katsuki clears his throat. "Regarding his conduct, it is not - " he winces, "Ideal. This term alone, there have been five incidences of truancy, nine of defiance of authority, two of uniform violation. He has also been reported fighting six times."

Otabek takes a long, deep breath.

"He isn't without his merits," Viktor says.

Yuri startles. His nails dig into his palms. "What the hell are you playing at - "

"He performs exceptionally in his music and performing arts electives," Viktor says, reading off the documents. "He's been consistently scored with an A throughout his time here." Viktor glances up. "And from my personal observations, Yuri is a talented dancer." Viktor sets the paper down and smiles at Yuri. "An option for him could be applying to an arts university for dance - "

"Shut up!" Yuri springs to his feet, sending the chair clattering to the floor. Anger sears throughout him, white hot. He steps back, shaking. "All of you," he snarls, "All of you sitting back there, trying to decide for me, as if you knew anything - "

"Yuri, please calm down - "

"Don't fucking touch me!" Yuri shoves Katsuki, who winces as his back slams into the table.

The chair clatters to the floor as Viktor springs to his feet. "Yuri, are you okay - "

"I'm done," Yuri says. "I'm done, this is stupid, I am _going_."

He sweeps the papers and documents off the table, snatches up his bag and storms out without a backwards glance. His brain seems engorged and pulsating between his ears, his stomach roiling, every pore of his skin a geyser of steam.

"Yura, wait!"

He speeds up. The corridor is mostly empty, with other students busy with their own conferences. The ones he bumps shoulders with, he shoves away.

"Oi, watch it - "

"Yura!"

Reaching the top of the stairs, he turns to yell over his shoulder, "Fuck off!"

A sharp pain sears through his ankle and shoots up his leg. He stumbles and overcompensates. The world slides out of view as the stairs rush up against him.

An arm loops around his middle and tugs him back against a broad chest. The movement puts weight on his foot, and he yelps at the pain.

Otabek's eyes widen. "Are you okay?"

"Leave me alone!" He pushes back against Otabek, only to fall flat onto his butt on the floor, ankle stinging.

Otabek kneels down and slides Yuri's trousers up to expose his ankle, tinted red. He frowns and curls long fingers around his ankle. "It looks like you've sprained it."

"And whose fault do you think that is?" Yuri jerks his leg out of Otabek's grip. It hurts. Everything hurts. He's a stupid brat who's only an inconvenience to everyone but they won't fuckin' leave him alone either and then they'll blame _him_ when he tries to push them away. They _pity_ him, oh poor little Yuri, can't do anything, they just want to feel a little better about themselves and he thought Otabek was different and he doesn't want to think of Otabek as different so Otabek should just go, leave, before Yuri does something stupid again -

Otabek picks him up princess-style.

"Wh-what are you doing!?"

"It's my fault you can't walk. I'm taking responsibility. Don't squirm," Otabek says, readjusting his grip. "I'll drop you."

He carefully descends the stairway. Yuri squeaks, throws his arms around Otabek's neck and buries his face in Otabek's shoulder.

"If you drop me," he says, words muffled, "I'll kill you."

He feels Otabek's body shake with silent laughter.

Otabek dumps him into the passenger seat of Mila's shiny Subaru. The one he uses when he needs to Make An Impression. It smells of lavender and money. Yuri scrambles with the door.

Otabek sighs and locks the door. "At least let me take you home," he says. "You can't get home like that."

Actually, he has, not only with a single sprain, groping his way through the dark.

He slumps against the car seat. Otabek reaches across and buckles him in.

He doesn't notice, until the music's well into the fifth bar, that Otabek hasn't turned the radio on.


	7. Ecdysis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At some point he realised that however good he tried to be it would never be enough to make up for the filth at the root of his being. Being good doesn't beget forgiveness, doesn't make people stay, doesn't bring back the dead.

"Oh, welcome home - says nobody," Yuri says, as he staggers through the door propped up on Otabek's shoulder. Otabek fumbles with the switch. Yuri kicks a stray bra under the couch.

"Where's your first-aid kit?" he asks, setting Yuri down on the sofa.

"Next to the box of make-up over there."

Otabek dresses Yuri's ankle with practised hands, sees it with clearer eyes than he does with Yuri himself. He is reduced to a malfunctioning ankle in Otabek's hands. He cannot fathom any reason for the rest of him to exist.

Just as Otabek finishes, his phone buzzes in his pocket. "Stay here," he says, and walks towards the kitchen.

Murmurs spill out across the hallway. Nikifuckoff, probably. Yuri slips off the couch and hobbles into his room, where he kicks off his stifling uniform and burrows into his sheets.

Maybe an earthquake will split the ground beneath their feet and send the entire apartment block sinking into magma. Or maybe a meteor will blast through the ceiling and juice out their guts into protein shakes. Or maybe Otabek will lose it and slam Yuri's head into the ground until he's a good obedient ragdoll.

At some point he realised that however good he tried to be it would never be enough to make up for the filth at the root of his being. Being good doesn't beget forgiveness, doesn't make people stay, doesn't bring back the dead. He'd rather just corrupt himself. Maybe then he'll feel coherent and whole.

(He doesn't.)

Rules, rules, rules. Only two choices, you either follow them or break them. Only two outcomes. Easier than a subway map. If he breaks Leroy's nose, he gets slapped with suspension. If he pays attention in music class, he gets enough favouritism to pass without sucking anyone off. If he steals from a shop, he gets hauled to the station.

Black and white. Yes and no. No need to think or feel. Just hit or get hit, shout or get shouted at.

Where is the damn rule with Otabek Altin? What does he have to do before Otabek gives up on him like everyone else? What does he have to do to make Otabek _his_?

When Otabek ends the call, Yuri is sitting on the couch in a too-big sweater and a too-short skirt. His cheeks are roses dragged from veins to skin, his lips peeled petals shimmery with gloss, his hair gathered into tight braids screwed against his skull.

Otabek almost drops his phone. He swallows, then carefully averts his eyes. "Yura," he says, "What are you doing?"

"You said 'stay here'," Yuri says, his heart impossibly loud and fast.

"What are you _wearing_ ," he says.

He tugs at the sleeves. "You lent it to me," he says defensively. "And Mila said she didn't want the skirt anymore - "

"Why? What are you...?"

This is the part where he surges up and crashes their lips together. This is the part where he sinks to his knees and unmakes Otabek. This is the part he's played a million times before.

He clutches at the soft cotton. "I like you," he says in a small voice.

Otabek sinks into the chair opposite him. "You only think that."

Yuri shakes his head, throat wadded with cotton.

"At your age, these kinds of things are common," Otabek says. "You'll grow out of it."

"Did you?"

Otabek clenches his fist. "You're my nephew," he says.

"Not by blood," Yuri says.

"That doesn't make it better," Otabek says. He rubs his temple. "What would Mila - "

"Shut up about her for a moment!" Yuri glares at him. "This has nothing to do with her."

"I'm supposed to care for you," Otabek says. He doesn't even sound like he's talking to Yuri anymore.

"You can do that and still - still screw me into the mattress," Yuri says desperately.

Otabek flushes up to his ears. He puts his face in his hands. "This is my fault."

"What - no! No, these are my feelings," Yuri bites out. "These are _mine_. You can't change them - "

"You need to stop," Otabek says. "You're young, you still have a future - "

"What, a future with a woman who would marry for image and miscarry for work?" He gets to his feet. "You're a coward!"

Otabek meets Yuri's gaze. "And you're a child," he says softly.

An anvil clogging up his throat, dropped straight down to the pit of his stomach. Hot tears prick at his eyes.

"Fine," he chokes out.

"Yuri, wait - "

He bursts through the door and runs the route he's so used to with Otabek by his side. Ducking into an alleyway, he slumps against the grimy bricked wall, the pain like needles driven through every nerve. A distraction from the buzzing hive in his guts.

He fumbles with the phone in his pocket.

"Come get me. Now."

***

"Careful, it's hot," Katsuki says as he hands Yuri the cup of hot chocolate. Yuri curls his fingers around it, letting the warmth seep into his icy hands.

Katsuki settles back against his seat beside Yuri, sipping from his own cup. The rain drums out a rhythm across the top of the car roof, droplets streaming down the windows, the reflections of the city and their faces warping in the water. Maybe it'll rain hard enough for a landslide to bury them all.

"I was surprised when you called me," Katsuki says eventually.

"You were the one who forced your number onto me," Yuri says.

"Did something happen?" Katsuki asks, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel, his gaze straight.

He doesn't know what he was expecting. Of course Otabek would reject him. There are simply too many reasons. Age. Morality. Reputation. Propriety.

But they'll say the same thing, about any other man Yuri gets down on his knees for any other night. No future? As if Yuri's never known that. How can you have feelings that are true and enduring in a world that tells you you are anything but?

He wants to destroy the world; he wants Otabek to destroy him.

He hugs his knees to his chest. "I was rejected," he mutters.

"Oh," Katsuki says. Then, awkwardly, "I'm sorry."

"Whatever," Yuri says.

It's fine, isn't it? He's held these twisted feelings inside him so long, strangling himself on his own silence. With Otabek's rejection, he can't find any other proof of his existence, except with a teacher who doesn't even know his name.

"Was it, um," Katsuki says, "Like in those dramas? Forbidden love?"

"Christ, that's cheesy coming outta you," Yuri says.

"Mm. Let me guess," Katsuki says. "He was a cool, older guy completely out of your league."

"Fuck off." Yuri scowls. "What do you know?"

"It's tradition for us," Katsuki says, stirring his coffee. "That kind of thing."

Yuri snorts. "You gonna tell me I'll grow out of it too?"

(Wonder why the same people who tell him he's too young for love never say he's too young to be left for dead in a dark alleyway. Maybe there's an age you're too young to live and too old to die.)

"I don't think you wanted him to accept you," Katsuki says.

Yuri crosses his arms. "Yeah, cause I'm such a masochist - "

"If he fucks you, won't he be like everyone else you spread your legs for?" Katsuki says coolly. "And you'll throw him away just as easily."

Yuri colours. "You don't know anything about me," he says.

Katsuki gives him a sideways glance. "Do you?"

Forget about love. There's only a cocktail of calculated vulnerability, codependency, ego and lust. You only have a mutually culpable car crash when both engines are faulty.

He swipes at his eyes. "Shut up," he says. "Just - shut up."

It's not like he didn't know, he just - all he wanted -

He presses the heel of his hands against his eyes and take a deep breath. When he glances over, Katsuki is holding a packet of tissues. Yuri knocks it out of Katsuki's hand, crosses the centre console between them and crawls into Katsuki's lap. He seizes Katsuki's collar and drags him down for a kiss as filthy as he feels.

Katsuki curls an arm around Yuri's waist and strokes at his hipbones. "I can make it better," he says.

"That's the idea, dumbass," Yuri says, he buries his face in Katsuki's shoulder and bites down on the skin there, swallowing back the steel in his throat.

"I'll make it better," Katsuki promises, and everything turns embryo-black.


	8. Cremaster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He has gone twenty years without being needed or needing anyone. In a world like this, for someone like him, the deepest connection between people is one forged of need. Forget about love.

This is what happens, in the televised version of their lives airing this summer: Otabek chases after Yuri, grabs him by the upper arm, spins him around and kisses him and it is enough to undo two-and-a-half season's worth build-up of conflict. 

This is what happens, in the televised version of their lives that will not get censored: Otabek chases after Yuri out to the road, is instantly killed by a drunk driver, and Yuri will cradle his head in his lap as he bleeds out onto the sidewalk, lips moving to form shapeless words.

He fucked it up. Yuri was the one thing he could have done alright, the one thing that could have made the past twenty years worth it. All destroyed with three words.

This is what happens, in the version broadcasted to the rest of the family in handsigns and meaningful looks: he knew nothing. Nothing about the pure need that tears at the eyes Yuri turns upon him. 

He knew nothing about how to make it go away. He didn't want to. He heard Yuri's soul sing with it and it was the first beautiful thing he'd heard in years. 

He didn't set out to seduce - to corrupt - it's the same thing - Yuri. He will admit it: he cultivated the need festering inside of Yuri, until it blossomed with the sweet scent of insect-dissolving acid. 

He has gone twenty years without being needed or needing anyone. In a world like this, for someone like him, the deepest connection between people is one forged of need. Forget about love.

He married her that time, because he thought she might need him. But she didn't need _Otabek Altin_ \- anyone else, given the right conditions, could have filled his role. As with everyone else whose vague affection he mistook as need. 

Yuri needs him. He'll come back, Otabek thinks numbly, because he _needs_ him, in a way that transcends lust or love or labels. It's purer than any other emotion, needing someone. The world has not called it corrupt yet.

Need has no dichotomy of requited and unrequited. He can't hurt Yuri by accepting or rejecting his feelings. 

Summer with the sounds of children and cicadas. All of that shut out by a windows with bars and soundproofed walls. He fits in too well with the rest of the room, pale skin on white sheets, too condensed to even cast a dark shadow. His hair spills across the pillow, a field of dying wheat, covering up the marks across his shoulders and upper arms. A screen monitors his heart rate and Otabek thinks of the metronomes Yuri hates so much. 

In the televised, action show version of their lives, Yuri scrambles up with a gasp and rips that IV drip out of his wrist. In the televised, action show version of their lives, it's a poisoning attempt, a slapstick accident, a witch's spell that throws him into a hospital - but no. It is only this family's curse.

An empty bed. Windows open to let still air out. A mess of wires and cables, no longer needed. Yuri on his knees on the floor, shaking fingers clutching at the unmade sheets, scavenging for any last trace. Otabek's arms across his shrunken shoulders, smelling nothing but antiseptic and surgical steel.

After the discharge he sleeps on Yuri's floor for weeks, every night dreaming of waking to an empty bed.

He jumps when his phone buzzes, and almost drops it to the floor. His fingers register the caller before his eyes do.

"Yuri?" he says. "Where are you - "

A scream splits his skull. 

"Don't worry. He's with me."

Words clog his dry throat. "Who is this?"

There's a crack and a scream.

"Don't - don't hurt him." He scrambles for something, anything he could say that won't get Yuri killed. "What do you want?"

The line goes dead.

He calls Yuri's number again, but gets no answer. He tries two more times before dialling Mila's number.

"Mila? It's Yuri - "

" _Hi! It's Mila. I'm busy and not able to take your call right now -_ "

"Fuck." He hangs up and dials Sara, but gets the _currently engaged_ dialtone. He grimaces. Of course. 

Yuri's mother doesn't pick up.

He thumbs through his pathetically short contacts list. The police, he should call the police - 

The smell of copper and gunpowder. 

The last call he picked up reads _Viktor Nikiforov_.

"Hello? Mr Altin - "

"He's gone," Otabek says. 

"Ah, pardon?"

"Yuri." Otabek runs his hand through his hair, pacing. "We - we got into - an argument, and he ran, and I got a call from his phone but it wasn't him - he's in trouble - "

"Mr Altin - Otabek, can I call you Otabek - Otabek, calm down," Viktor says. "I'm sure Yuri's fine."

"You said he got into fights," Otabek says. It comes out more accusatory than he intended.

"Minor scuffles," Viktor says. "Nothing involving gangs."

Otabek flinches. 

"I told you, he skips school a fair bit," Viktor says. There's the creak of a chair being pushed back and the rustle of clothes. "I've had to fish him out some of his hiding places before. I can find him. I can get to your house in ten minutes."

"My address - "

"Is in the class registry," Viktor says. A door slams on his side. "Is anyone else with you?"

"No," Otabek says. "It's just me."

A stout, silver car far above the normal teacher's pay grade skids to a halt outside in seven minutes.

"I think I passed two red lights," Viktor says.

"Thank you for doing this," Otabek says as he slides into the seat. "I'm sorry, I didn't know who else to call - "

"It's alright," Viktor says. "I'm aware of Yuri's - " his gaze flickers over to Otabek, " - situation."

He's not sure why, but that word brings heat to his cheeks. "What do you - "

"Oh no, I mean nothing bad, I promise." Viktor picks up a flask from the cup holder and holds it out to Otabek. "Hot tea," he says. A smile tugs at his lips. "It always calmed Yuri down when he got into one of his moods."

Otabek unscrews the flask and downs the tea. It's far too sweet, exactly how Yuri would like it.

"It's reassuring that Yuri is surrounded by people who care for him," Viktor says. "He's - a special child, and he has a lot of potential. As his teacher, I want to do everything I can for him."

Viktor goes on about - counselling, and lessons, and _feelings_ , enough for Otabek to know this man knows jack shit about Yuri Plisetsky. Still he nods along and plays attentive guardian as if he didn't just drive his nephew out of his house by refusing to fuck him.

Otabek doesn't recognise the route until he realises it's their route, strange and upended through a car window rather than a vision through raw wind. It's the only thing he can pinpoint, and that because he's come to think of it as _theirs_ , easily picked out in this city where nothing belongs to him.

"Yuri goes to these kinds of places?" Otabek says, as they pass through the less...reputable side of the town.

"Don't think too much of it," Viktor says. He hums and drums his fingers against the steering wheel. "A lot of kids do that these days. Ah, it should be around here."

He shuts off the engine. It doesn't make a sound. Otabek follows him out of the car through what seems to be an endless park, down a path twisting and turning in between skeletal trees.

"How did you find out about this?" Otabek says.

"I'm his teacher," Viktor says, sounding almost affronted. 

_And I'm his -_ his what? 

"Otabek? Are you alright?" Viktor asks, peering up at him. 

Otabek blinks. "Sorry," he says. "I'm just - worried."

"Eh?" Viktor studies his face. "You sure it's not the pills?"

Otabek flushes. "They're not - I don't take anymore than needed - "

"Oh, no," Viktor waves dismissively. "I meant the ones I gave you."


	9. Drone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Sweet dreams?" Viktor looks at him, chin resting on his hand with an elbow propped up on the futon. "I might have put too much. You slept a while."

"Your tie is crooked," Yuri says, standing on his tiptoes to fix it. 

"I'm surprised you know how to," Otabek says, gesturing at the gaudy, heart-print tie meant to 'ward off all the harpies'. "I always had to fix yours for you last time."

Yuri smirks. "Well, that's the only way you'd have ever put your hands all over a high schooler," he says. He steps back and studies his handiwork. He nods. "Yeah," he says. "You look good. I'd tap that."

He grins when Otabek flushes. "Good luck at work," Yuri says. He tugs on Otabek in by the tie for a kiss. "Come home quickly."

"I will - "

BANG.

His eyelids spring open, head throbbing with pain. The fog in his head clears. Beneath him is a futon, thin enough that he can feel the rough, hard floor underneath. There's a yellowed ceiling run through with cracks, four walls of peeling plaster, and a man beside him with a smile like he's selling something.

"Sweet dreams?" Viktor looks at him, chin resting on his hand with an elbow propped up on the futon. "I might have put too much. You slept a while."

Otabek bolts upright. A wave of nausea crashes through him. He sags against the wall, panting. There's the clink of metal, and that's when he sees the chains around his ankles.

"Try not to move around too much," Viktor says, patting his knee through the sheets. "They're stronger than the ones you're used to."

"What...what the hell?" he says hoarsely. "What's going on?" A thousand voices clamour in his brain, the buzzing of a hive. But his monarch is clear. "Where's Yuri?"

"Ah, how lucky!" Viktor says with a pout. "Yuri has such a caring uncle. Even when you're chained up with a strange man on top of you, you're still thinking about him." He claps his hand over his mouth. "Eh, what's with that phrasing? I made it sound dirty." He cocks his head and smiles at Otabek. "There's no way it's dirty, is it?"

The wall presses against Otabek's back, ridges fitting into the knobs of his spine as he attempts to inch away. "What are you - what do you want? Where is this - "

Viktor holds a hand up. "Yes, yes, I know you have many questions," he says. "One at a time. There's only one of me and - oh." He glances around the classroom, and smiles guilelessly. "Ah, I've gotten far too used to being a teacher."

"Where is this?" The chains rattle as he jerks forward, his voice echoing in the cramped room.

"This is where you'll be staying for a while," Viktor says.

He must have hit his head. Maybe he's still asleep? Or he's hallucinating. That must be it. There's no way he's being held captive by his nephew's homeroom teacher. 

A slap cracks across his cheek. "Did that hurt?" Viktor says. He nods understandingly. "They always start with denial." He frowns. "I thought you would be different. Maybe I was mistaken."

"Why are you doing this?" Otabek asks.

"Hm. Pop quiz!" He holds up his hand and counts off his fingers. "A) For my own fun, B) For Yuri's sake, or C) For your sake?"

Otabek blinks. "What - "

"Ding ding ding! Time's up," he says. "Answer is, D) All three!"

Otabek's eyes widen. What the hell? Yuri - is Yuri involved in this too? Is he somewhere here? Is he hurt - 

"There's that!" Viktor claps his hands and smiles. "Now, how about a game?"

Anger cuts through the wave of anxiety in him. "Stop fucking with me!"

"You don't want to play?" Viktor says, rummaging through a dismal, beaten-up cupboard in the corner. "And I went through so much trouble to dig this up again too, how mean..."

Viktor holds up a dart board, like the kinds at karaoke bars, only, there are pieces of paper stuck over the panels, with Viktor's neat-and-tidy handwriting across them. "HT tells AT where we are", "HT takes off a fingernail from AT", "HT tells an embarrassing middle school story!", "HT treats AT to lunch", "AT gets to pick how they want to torture HT".

"HT...?"

"Home Team, that's me," Viktor says, pointing to himself, "And you're Away Team."

Otabek's gaze flickers over the different panels. The penalties range from doing a chicken dance to getting their back whipped open. And - 

"See this?" Viktor taps the bulls-eye panel. "'Freedom'." 

"Eh...?"

"Yup!" Viktor grins. "It's no fun if there isn't some kind of risk involved for both of us, right?" He taps his chin. "Although, sure, you don't have to play - "

"I'll play," Otabek says. 

Viktor's smile softens. "I knew he was right after all."

He hangs up the board on the opposite wall and hands Otabek a container of bright-pink darts. "You go first, then."

 _Freedom_. He picks up a dart and pulls his arm back.

_Relax. It's no different from the old times, just like when you were with those kids…_

The dart zips through the air and - 

"'A story about first love'," Viktor reads out. "Oh, that's easy enough - "

"I don't really care - "

"I was fortunate enough that my first love was requited," he says. He cocks his head at Otabek. "I can't say the same for you, though."

Otabek bites down on his lip. _Don't give him a reaction, don't give him a reaction…_

"The day I realised I had fallen for him," Viktor says wistfully, "The moon was beautiful as it cast light on his form burying a body beneath a sakura tree."

He wants to laugh. That's something way too cliche, from the numerous horror manga Yuri pretends to like, it's surreal. It's too surreal.

"Then, my turn," Viktor says, and throws a dart.

 _HT treats AT to lunch_.

"Oh, I was aiming for something else..." He glances over at Otabek. "Oops, I hope you're okay with frog intestines for today."

Otabek ignores him and picks up the dart. He narrows his eyes, gaze fixed on *Freedom*, and throws.

_Thump._

Viktor claps slowly, once, twice. "Wow," he says. "I wasn't expecting you to get it this early in the game."

Dread curdles in Otabek's guts. He backs away, only to hit the wall. The chains clink around his feet.

"You're - no way," he whispers, unable to look away from the board.

Viktor cages him in with his arms and smiles. "A game's not fun without a little risk," he says softly. He raises his hand and forces Otabek's slack jaw open. "You do look like the serious type to see the dentist regularly."

This isn't happening.

Viktor pulls his phone out from his pocket. "Hey, it's me! Oh, yeah, he's awake, doing just fine - ohh what's this, were you lonely without me?" A pale flush paints his cheek. "Anyway, you remember to bring the pliers this time - what do you - it wasn't my fault they weren't there last time! I swore I put it in - ah, no I'm not blaming you - but they're there now right? We're keeping him waiting." He flashes an apologetic smile at Otabek. "What - oh right," he holds the phone away from his ear, "Pick a tooth!"

No , no, _no_. This isn't happening, not again, not after all this time - 

"Looks like he can't decide," Viktor says. He hums thoughtfully. "Then you can just go ahead and pull out his canines, then. Make the tiger into a cute little kitty."

...eh?

Otabek wrenches the phone away from Viktor. "What do you mean?" he yells into the phone. "Who - "

Yuri's scream fills his ears.

Viktor pats him on the shoulder. "Otabek, Otabek," he says exasperatedly, "Have you never heard of team play? Well, I hope you learn fast." He picks up another dart. "We still have two more rounds to go."


	10. Parasite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Viktor raises an eyebrow. "Are you losing it already?" he says. "Well, I don't mind. You can't play if you're not mad after all."

If you rear cattle, you have two ways to go about it: either treat them with kindness they will come to expect hurtling wide-eyed and bared-open into the world, or sharpen their claws and teeth with the one hurt that you will make sure will be the only one they suffer for the rest of their life. Anything else is half-assing the job - and you won't be the one bearing the consequences.

He curls up on the futon on top of the blanket, eyes squeezed shut, hands clapped over his face like it could block out the harsh glare of the large TV-screen Viktor mounted on the wall while he'd been knocked out from the game. How much money and time has he put into - no, Otabek doesn't want to think about it.

There's a flicker of movement. He snatches the pillow from the head of the futon and buries his face in it. It's slightly more effective blocking out not only the light from the TV, but also the stench of copper and rust, smelling like moss and sandalwood -

Like Yuri.

He holds the sheets to his. It's the same scent. How could he not have noticed before...? He pulls the blanket off the bedding, turns it inside out to find blood across the yellowed sheets.

The sheets slip out of his hands as he raises his head to fix his eyes on the screen. On the quivering, small back drooling from a cartography of lacerations. The camera cuts off far too cleanly at the neck, finger-shaped bruises peeking out beneath curling fine blonde hair; and at the hips, leaving to Otabek's imagination the desecration beyond that.

There is no remote control. The chains stop him from going any closer than an arm's length away, just enough for him to track a single bead of blood glide along an open wound.

At the two-minute mark, there's a flicker, and the drop of blood begins its descent again.

Ther is no time stamp - no way for Otabek to know if this happened days ago, to a body that's now turning blue in a freezer; or hours ago, when his dart first sunk home into the board; or minutes ago, with screams he can't hear still echoing down some oh-so-close corridor.

He hears them in his dreams. Not echoing, but torn from a larynx bared open beneath his hands, almost as eel-slippery as his cock buried in blood and wet heat.

***

It's the battered wooden chair that crowds his vision when he opens his eyes, wobbling on splintering legs, a flash of red across the seat that vanishes when he blinks. A pale hand reaches out, spins the chair around, and the body follows, straddling the chair as cold blue eyes flicker over his form. A wraith stepping out of his dreams.

(A baseball bat and the smell of copper. Shadows threading through letters in red.)

"Good morning," Viktor says. "Sleep well?"

He sits up. Pain shoots through his skull, his brain that feels like mush. "What did you do to me?"

"Gave you a little something for the bad dreams," Viktor says, with a conspiratorial wink. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyway." He rests his chin on the top of the chair. "More than that, what do you think of my interior decorating skills?"

"Interior decorating...?"

His eyes widen as he takes in the room, the walls covered in pictures. Yuri napping around Potya on his couch. Laughing into Otabek's ear on his bike. Tugging his shirt off in the shower. Drooling on his desk in class. Grinning as he devours a bowl of shaved ice under lantern light, cream on his nose and crumbs on his cheeks.

Christ, that's Otabek's phone wallpaper. They took it at the summer festival _months_ ago.

They're all professional, high quality, glossy images. Even the ones that don't have his face in them, isn't the fault or a misplaced angle. A lily-white hand fanned open on a mahogany table, a nail driven right through the middle. A slender back, fine lacerations joining up freckles like some parody of connect-the-dots. A wrist at the wrong angle. Fingernails twisting into pale thighs splattered with white and red.

What? What? What? He can't fucking breathe. His body sways and spews out onto the cold marble floor, half-digested animal remains splashed across his reflection. The tremours start from between his ears, then spreads outwards, until his whole body spasms. It drips out of him. Laughter.

"Not a fan of frog leg porridge, huh?" Viktor says.

He can't stop. His body reallocates everything it used to keep his heart beating into the sound tearing its way out his chest. He thinks he'll die if he stops.

Viktor raises an eyebrow. "Are you losing it already?" he says. "Well, I don't mind. You can't play if you're not mad after all."

"Play," Otabek wheezes. "Of course, this is all play to you."

"That's where you're wrong," Viktor says. He kneels down beside Otabek, until they're eye-to-eye. He smiles that sweet, gentle homeroom teacher smile. "This is all very important to me." He reaches out and brushes his knuckles against Otabek's cheek. "You're very important to me."

Otabek twitches as he resists the urge to spit in Viktor's face. It'll only make him angry. Angry's no good -

(Shadows blazing up against the wall like flames. Screaming. Screaming. Screaming.)

"Otabek, don't you like to gamble?" Viktor says, as he shuffles a deck of cards. "You're a day trader, after all."

"It's not the same," Otabek says.

(It's not real.)

"Maybe for other people," Viktor says, "But not for you. You miss it. The thrill of standing on the precipice of destroying your whole life."

"You overestimate me."

Viktor laughs. "Do you miss the rest of your old life too?"

Otabek clenches his fists. "Is this what it's about? Then it has nothing to do with Yuri - "

"I don't care about your past," Viktor says. "I care about your future. Our future."

"I'm a little too old for a career conference," Otabek says.

"Which makes you the right age to play with me," Viktor says.

He holds out his hand and smiles. "What will you do for freedom, Otabek Altin?"

All this while, holding that white flower between his teeth with his soiled hands behind his back.

The air here is far more tainted.

Otabek reaches forward and takes the Queen of Hearts.


	11. Endopterygota

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fingers clamp around his wrist. The figure swells up from the ground in a shroud of dirt and blood.

The first round, he cleans up his vomit.

The second round, Viktor takes the chains off his ankles.

The third round, he undoes Viktor's belt and gets on his knees.

The fourth round, Viktor gives him Yuri's shirt.

The fifth round, he chokes Viktor with his own belt and escapes.

***

The endless, empty field rushes by in a blur beside him. Several other run-down, small structures creep into his vision at intervals like things emerging from the earth.

Focus. He has to get away. For now, just run. As far as possible.

The green hurts his eyes and the air his lungs. The capsicum sky melts around the burst pus of sunset, char creeping up on its curling edges. The shadows of trees weave nets that trap the wavering self at his feet. He closes his eyes and thinks of sea-green eyes of impossible depths.

And he falls over a body.

He lays on the cold ground for a long moment, thinking, absurdly, of trolls turned to stone by sunlight. Thinks to run before the sun does from the moon. But he is stone, has been for years; he does not even have the right to fear.

The blades of grass are dewy with blood. He pushes himself up and crawls over to the figure, chest juicing blood out his heart. He's not sure if he's disappointed, seeing hair charcoal and not gold.

"Hey." He reaches out and finds they're still warm the touch. "Hey, are you okay?"

Fingers clamp around his wrist. The figure swells up from the ground in a shroud of dirt and blood.

"Please help me," Katsuki Yuuri whispers.

There's a glint of light off metal. The bloodied face of a golden watch sits heavy on Katsuki's twisted wrist, right beneath the jagged tear baring the bones of his hand. Secretions seep through his clothes, his back cut open beneath that.

His head is swirling. "Did Viktor - you...?"

"He said we were going for a picnic," Yuuri says quietly.

And of course he wouldn't have questioned it, some hideaway at the edge of the world and its tape-recorder ideals. It's the perfect place for a crime, whether the crime's a dead body or a bared one.

"Can you stand?" Otabek holds his arms out.

"I think so," Yuuri says. He grabs Otabek's arms and raises himself up, grimacing. Blood runs down his arm and stains Otabek's hands red.

They stand still for a moment, Yuuri struggling to catch his breath as Otabek props him up.

"We need to get help," Otabek says. "Can you walk?"

Yuuri nods. He forces a grin, not as convincing beneath the blood trickling from his forehead. "I think I might know the way to the main road. He drove us here, after all."

Otabek came for Yura, Katsuki for Viktor. Both of them will be leaving with neither of them.

No, he'll get help, and they'll come back for Yuri. It's the only way.

They pick a path through moss and stone, Katsuki giving directions in his careful, measured voice. Otabek struggles to focus on that, and not the shadows creeping closer and closer every moment.

Katsuki notices. "I'm sorry," he says. "I'm slowing you down. Maybe you should - "

"I don't know the way out," Otabek says. "You do."

Now that he's no longer running, the thoughts are free to ravage his mind. How long has it been? Is Viktor out there somewhere in the darkness of the trees, waiting to ambush his prey? Where is Yuri? If he gets free, is Viktor going to take it out on Yuri -

If he gets free.

He stumbles, but catches himself. Katsuki shoots him a concerned look. "Are you tired? Please hang on a bit longer, I think we're almost there."

His skin feels stretched taut over a body it can no longer contain. He's going to be free.

"I think there's a house there," Katsuki says, squinting in the distance. "Behind it should be the main road." He bites his lip and glances at Otabek. "What do you want to do?"

Otabek glances up at the sky, the last fading rays of sunlight saturating the thin-shredded wool of clouds a sickly yellow. "We'll check if anyone's in and ask for help."

Like a foreign organ grafted onto the dilapidated landscape, the bungalow-like structure huddles close to the trees, the yellow-lit windows peeking at Otabek from behind the thick trunks. Clay brown brick walls, overrun with moss and ivy, climb up to a flat, black roof. Flowers bloom beneath the porch in a riot of colours. It's not until he looks down and sees his shadow snared in festering tendrils, that he realises just how far the garden extends.

He steps forward, breath caught in his throat, Katsuki lighter than a feather - practically wings.

When he raises his fist, the door parts before him.

Right, not like there's any need to care about security in the middle of nowhere. He adjusts his grip on Katsuki.

"Excuse me," he says crisply, and steps into the house.

The door clicks shut behind them. Katsuki steps away and steadies himself. "I think I feel better now," he says.

They're in what looks like the living room. Empty frames hang from the jaundiced walls. Four cups of still steaming tea sits next to a stack of books on a low coffee table surrounded by two armchairs and a couch. His gaze flickers over to the books and papers strewn across the table - Lolita, Annabel, Justine, Rebecca.

Yuri lying on that couch with his feet in Otabek's lap, the words spilling like starlight from his lips - _of the bells bells bells bells, bells bells bells_ , scritching Potya behind her ear because Beka, you're no help at all even though you're the one who keeps nagging at me to do my essay, shut up I _am_ doing it, I'm still talking, even Potya's so much more helpful, yeah, she understands with that bell you keep on her after all?

Yuri, Yuri, Yuri.

He grits his teeth and stalks down the corridor. "Hello?" he says. His voice echoes throughout the carvernous house. There must be a phone somewhere, help somewhere -

At the end of the corridor he sees light. A study or office of some sort. He wrenches the old, oak door open and the light spills out and stitches itself to his clothes and skin and cells.

"I'll ask again. What literary techniques identifies this play as a work of the Jacobean period?"

"Let me go, you sick fuck, I don't fucking know - "

CRACK.

"Fine. Your strength lies more in dramatics, anyway. Hmm, something about the staging...Did you know, they say at one performance of the play, devils appeared upon the stage and people went mad at the sight."

"I don't - agh! - I don't fucking care - "

CRACK.

"That's a pity, I would have liked to teach you theatre studies. You understand acting, after all. Next question."

Cool silver eyes meet his over the top of the book.

"What is the name of the devil Faustus sold himself to?"


	12. Imago

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Ehh? Me? Hurt someone so cute like Yu-ri-o?" Viktor shakes his head and laughs. "I would never." He cocks his head and smiles at Otabek. "I can't say the same for you, though."

There are hands and eyes and in a flash he's on his knees, hands locked behind his back, a gag stuffed into his mouth.

Viktor's gaze flickers over to behind him. "Aren't you a little late," he says, a teasing lilt to his voice.

"You like waiting for me," Katsuki says, and Otabek's blood runs cold.

Katsuki kneels down until he's eye level with Otabek. "I'm sorry," he says, a pained expression on his face. He lifts his hand and wiggles, smiling sheepishly. "Viktor's a brute."

"Hmm...? That's not what you said last night," Viktor says.

Katsuki blushes. He gets to his feet and fumbles with several things on the desk, ears red. He walks over to where Yuri is tied up on the couch, and slides a pair of headphones over Yuri's head, even as he swears and struggles.

"Yuuuuri," Viktor whines, and hooks his chin over Katsuki's shoulder. "Don't ignore me."

"V-Viktor!" Katsuki splutters as Viktor winds his arms around Katsuki's middle. "We have guests - we have a _schedule_."

Viktor draws back, frowning, and folds his arms. "Can you even do it properly with your hand like that?"

There's a glint in Katsuki's eye. He turns around and pulls Viktor in by his tie, until their lips are almost touching. "I know I can make him scream so much louder than you," he nips Viktor's bottom lip, "You old man."

Oh. They're going to - Yuri - in front of him. Oh. 

He must have made some noise, because Viktor's gaze flickers over to him. "What about a little competition," Viktor says, and points at Otabek, "Over whose champion screams louder, mine or yours?"

"You're doing the dishes for the week if you lose," Katsuki warns.

"That's fine," Viktor says. He winks. "I'm doing _you_ the rest of the week if I win."

"I'll start then," Katsuki says. He yanks Yuri up by the collar and slams his head against the wall.

Viktor moves behind Otabek, his chest flush against Otabek's back, his breath ghosting the shell of Otabek's ear. The gag falls away. 

"Yuri!" Otabek shouts. He struggles with the bonds, but they have no give. "Yuri! Yuri, I'm here, it's Uncle Beka - "

"He can't hear you," Viktor says, slinging an arm across Otabek's shoulder. "Those are noise cancelling earphones."

Katsuki reaches over and picks something up from the desk - Otabek's eyes widen - a cat o' nine tails. He runs his elegant fingers along the length of the handle, watching Yuri thoughtfully.

"No," Otabek whispers. Then louder, "Stop it."

"Don't worry," Viktor says, right by his ear. "We're using a different version, the one made for Royal Navy boys, boys just like Yuri." He hums. "The boy's pussy."

Katsuki draws his arm back and swings. Yuri arches off the couch with a scream.

"Stop stop stop stop stop - "

"I wonder if he can hear himself scream?" Viktor muses. 

"Stop it," Otabek says. "Let him go. If it's me you want - "

Viktor laughs. "Half of you is Yuri," he says. "Just like half of me is Yuuri."

Otabek swallows. "Who the fuck are you people?"

Another scream shatters the air. Otabek flinches. Yuri is sobbing into the cushions, soaking the blindfold through with tears, curses spilling out half-coherently, pale back ivied with red milkweed.

"Stop it!" Otabek shouts. He throws himself forward, trying to get closer, but Viktor easily holds him back.

"We can't," Viktor says, almost sadly. He traces Otabek's jaw with a finger. "Unless you want to do for him instead?"

Otabek jerks away from his touch, staring at him, eyes impossibly wide. "What...?"

Another scream rents the air. Yuri's huddled into a ball, his small form trembling, blood staining the couch right through.

"Yuuri! Careful he doesn't pass out," Viktor says. "He can't scream if he's passed out."

"Even I know that, Viktor," Katsuki says with a smile. He picks up a cup of water from the desk and empties it over Yuri, ice cubes like hailstones, soaking him. He splutters, and struggles upright, swearing.

Otabek surges forward, smashing his head against Viktor's. Viktor falls back, and then grabs his head and slams it against the floor. Again. And again. His ears ring.

"Hey, Yuuri," Viktor says. "Your show's too tame, after all. It looks like our guest is getting bored."

"Ah, that's too bad," Katsuki says. He sets the whip down on the desk. His eyes roam over the various implements on the table before he picks up a knife, holding it up so the light glints off it. Otabek stares back at himself inside of it with mad and bloodshot eyes.

"I'll just have to get creative then," he says. He sits down on the couch and flips Yuri over, running his hands down those long, colt legs. 

Yuri jerks at the touch of the cold knife against his pain-heated skin. "No - "

Katsuki slides the blade beneath the hem of Yuri's briefs and cuts them away. Clean enough that not a scratch grazes Yuri's skin.

Otabek breath sticks in his throat like a cyst.

"Sensei, Sensei, don't, don't - stop it - "

Katsuki runs the flat of the blade against Yuri's thigh, humming. "I'm sorry, Yuri," he says, sounding genuinely apologetic. "This isn't your fault."

 _No_ , Otabek thinks. _It's mine._

The blade sinks into that soft, tender flesh, that parts almost with anticipation. It undoes the stitching of velvet and wine. It orbits the flesh until the skin-sky breaks away in a total eclipse.

Katsuki touches the flayed skin to his lips. He licks Yuri's blood off the knife. And then he devours Yuri's mouth with his own, fingernails digging into the newly stripped flesh. 

Distantly, Otabek realises his throat is burning and his ears numb.

"It's okay now," someone is saying, from far, far away. "I'm going to make it all okay. Everything is going to go away. All of it."

Katsuki overturns what looks like a bottle of alcohol onto a piece of cloth and presses it to Yuri's thigh. Yuri digs his nails into his palms until they bleed. His mouth is open, spit dribbling down to his neck. There is no sound.

Katsuki cleans the wound with a tenderness that makes Otabek shake. He wraps it in bandages that look clean and soft, fingers deft and precise.

He's done this before. Of course.

Katsuki brushes his lips across the bandages and feathers kisses all the way down Yuri's leg to his toes. 

Then Katsuki drapes Yuri across his lap and cleans the weeping wounds there too. When he finishes, he holds Yuri to his chest and kisses his neck.

Yuri doesn't struggle. It would only aggravate the pain from his wounds. Katsuki takes Yuri's chin between his fingers and turn Yuri's face towards him, leaning in for a kiss. 

His lips come away red. Underneath the tears and sweat, Yuri's face cracks a grin.

It's a grin that fades as Katsuki bites down onto his neck and sucks. Katsuki touches Yuri, soles of his feet, jewelled knuckles, the inside of his wrist.

When he pats Yuri's head, Yuri chokes on a whimper.

"Hey, Otabek," Viktor says, a disembodied voice by his ear. "Are you looking? Are you looking?"

Yuri's slumped against Katsuki's back, blindfold damp over his flushed face, hair sticking to his face with sweat, swollen lips parted and shining. A plain white button-down hangs loose on his slender frame, falling past his thighs while the sleeves cover his knuckles. With a jolt, Otabek realises it's _his_ shirt. Half-unbuttoned, it exposes Yuri's collarbones, like a chalice you could drink wine from, his pale chest marked with bruises. Through the soaked-through, half-translucent thin cotton, he can see Yuri's skin, flushed from exertion, and his nipples straining against the cloth.

Otabek turns away. Viktor grabs Otabek's face and wrenches it back towards Yuri.

"You did this," Viktor says softly. "Show him what he did, Yuuri."

Katsuki splays his fingers across Yuri's thighs and spreads them. 

The bandages are layered thickly over his left thigh. The only thing protecting the vines of muscle and roots of blood from the taint of the world. How is he to bloom like this? How is he to bear fruit like this? How is he going to dance like this?

Katsuki's lips are moving. _Like this_. Slender fingers close around Yuri's cock, an orchid's white petals embracing a male bee in heat and deceit. Yuri cries out and shudders, thrashes in Katsuki's arms, curses and screams and demands. 

No. No. No no no no no no no no.

Not again.

Teeth graze the top of his ear. "He's a virgin, isn't he? It'll hurt even if he wasn't. Even more so if he wasn't prepared properly."

Nonononononononononono - 

"He'll bleed, of course. Beautifully. The blood will make it easier after a while. He'll have blood and come running down those pretty legs. He won't walk for days - or maybe we'll fuck him for days."

(Blood blood blood there was so much blood underneath that short short skirt - )

"Sometimes they're just too tight though. Their small little bodies and their tiny holes. So we just make a bigger one somewhere else - "

"I'll do it."

Viktor smiles at him. "Hm?"

He's bleeding, Otabek realises vaguely. His palms. Pierced by nails - of the human sort. 

Otabek swallows. "I'll do it in his place."

Viktor's smile widens. It's the exact same smile he gave Otabek over his teacher's desk what feels like a century ago. "Perfect." 

Viktor slides his hands to Otabek's waist and undoes his belt and pants methodically. Otabek shudders at his touch.

"Hm? What's wrong?"

"It's cold," he says, averting his gaze. "Your - watch."

"Is that so? I apologise." He undoes the bindings around Otabek's ankles. "By the way," he says, "I'd advise against trying anything funny while your cute little nephew is tied up over there veeeeeery close to that big sharp knife on the table." 

Otabek grits his teeth. "I won't. Don't hurt him."

"Ehh? Me? Hurt someone so cute like Yu-ri-o?" Viktor shakes his head and laughs. "I would never." He cocks his head and smiles at Otabek. "I can't say the same for you, though."

Otabek bites down on his tongue until his mouth fills with copper. 

"It's troublesome, isn't it?" Viktor says, as he tugs Otabek's trousers down. "Having to prepare - "

"Don't touch me," Otabek says. "I can undress myself."

"I'm sure you can," Viktor says. "But you can't suck yourself off, can you?"

Otabek blinks. Then Viktor's words settle in and he snarls. "No - I didn't agree to that - "

"Ah, that's true. Sorry. You wanted Yuri, right?"

Panic flashes through him. "No - "

"Yuuri," Viktor says. "Could you bring Yuri's mouth over here?"

" _Leave him alone_ \- "

"We are leaving him alone," Viktor says. He pats Otabek's shoulder with a laugh. "Leaving him alone with you." He sighs wistfully. "Ah, young love."

Katsuki lifts Yuri up, walks over to the two of them, and drops Yuri to the floor. He yanks Yuri's head up by his hair and shoves his face between Otabek's legs.

"Wh-what - " Yuri groans weakly.

"Stop," Otabek says. "Stop - "

Yuri's soft, pink lips brush against the base of his cock. He bites his lip. 

"Should I push him down onto it?" Katsuki asks. "Alone, I don't think he's very good at it."

" _Don't_ ," Otabek hisses. "Just - leave us alone."

"Hm. I'll untie your hands then," Viktor says. "Remember, nothing funny."

Otabek pulls Yuri close. Yuri struggles, then yelps from the pain, and flops bonelessly against Otabek's chest. Otabek cradles the back of Yuri's skull, taking strands of fine, gold hair between his fingers. He presses his ear to Yuri's chest and that fragile, songbird heart fluttering caged within it, and it's enough to steel his resolve.

He's alive. They're alive. He'll do anything to keep it that way. 

(It will be different this time.)

"Quit that," Yuri mutters. "Quit it, you damn creep."

He swallows down the half-hysterical laughter bubbling in his throat. Crazy, sick, perverted - he's heard it all. The red strings of a self-fulfilling prophecy snaring all of them in its net.

He presses a kiss to Yuri's forehead. "I'm sorry," he whispers. "I'm sorry."

He doesn't know how to do it. Yuri's first. If it were any other situation, it would be tender kisses, soft touches, and honeyed desire.

(His was down on his knees in the back alley of a bar, high on the belief that he was as invincible as he was free.)

As quick and painless as possible then. 

He picks up the bottle of lube Viktor tossed to him and uncaps it, drizzling lube over Yuri's flushed, pink hole. 

Yuri flinches. "Wait - ngh!"

Yuri splutters as Otabek slides his fingers past his lips, threads of spit clinging to them. Otabek doesn't want to have to hear Yuri's voice. Doesn't want to hear Yuri break and beg.

(For what? - he tries not to think about that.)

He rubs the flat of his thumb against Yuri's furled hole. Yuri's breath hitches in his throat, a moan teetering on his lips, before he clamps his teeth down on Otabek's fingers. 

What is the hour past the time of praying?

Otabek slides a finger into Yuri, and then one, and then two. Methodically. Sex in the end is just another means to survival. Forget expressions of love or perversity. 

He knows he can't make life. At least let him pretend he can preserve one. 

Yuri slumps against Otabek's shoulder, shoulders shaking as he sobs. Sharp teeth dig harder into Otabek's fingers everytime he crooks his fingers and brushes up against that spot that makes Yuri twitch and shiver.

He never cries out, though.

Otabek slides his fingers out. Yuri whimpers. Otabek winds his arms around Yuri's long legs, lifts him up, and then sits Yuri down on his cock.

"No!" Yuri screams right by his ear. "Stop it! Fucking stop it!"

Otabek kisses him. Yuri tastes like morning dew and muddy rain and a kingfisher poised upon a pond leaf. His body ripples, liquid. Otabek hugs him close and drinks him in.

Yuri pulls away, face flushed, breathless. "I told you to stop - "

He sucks on Yuri's tongue, thrusts his own into Yuri's mouth, grazes bruised lips with his teeth. He swallows every one of Yuri's sounds.

Quick and painless.

When he hits that spot that makes Yuri squirm and gasp, he keeps going. Yuri clenches up around him, soft and hot and dripping, a sobbing, wrecked mess in his arms. He's gorgeous, in the way a daisy stained with battlefield mud is. 

He doesn't know which of them comes first. Only that instantly they're wrenched apart, the ropes replaced around his hands and feet, and Viktor calmly buttoning up his trousers like a helpless child and the frustration and humiliation burns inside him. 

"Good job," Viktor says quietly, patting his shoulder. He walks over to where Katsuki is wiping up Yuri. "Aha, Yuri, what's with you, you seemed so much more into it today?"

"I'm going to fucking _kill_ you, you shithead - "

"Don't swear," Katsuki says. He slides the blindfold off Yuri's eyes. "We have guests."

Yuri slams his head into Katsuki's chest, darts to the table, grabs the knife between his teeth and stabs himself.


	13. Instar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Viktor holds up his hands. "I don't have any, unfortunately." He turns to Otabek. "Although you seem to be in more trouble than me." He leans over and runs his finger over the shapes cut into ebony. "You have almost every other flower," he says. "Except the one you really need," his gaze flickers over to Yuri, "The chrysanthemum."

There is less screaming than the last hospitalisation. Maybe that was where he learned to like being tied up.

***

"Traditionally, these were made of bones," Viktor says, lifting up a single, white tile. He glances at the engraving, the character for _north_ written on it in blue. "This is an old set, given to us by a friend. Over the years, some of the tiles have gone missing." He sets the north tile down and casts his gaze over the mahjong tiles strewn across the table, each one not quite like the other. "When that happens," he says with a smile, "We have to replace them ourselves."

"Stop babbling on and on, you old man," Yuri says, cheek pressed to the table. "I don't understand any of your bullshit. Blah blah blah blah."

"What's the game this time?" Otabek cuts in, before either of them can react.

Viktor pouts. "Hmph. Apparently _someone_ doesn't understand any of my 'bullshit' anyway - "

"You know how to play mahjong, right?" Katsuki says.

(Cigarette smoke, broken-in windows, coins and notes lit in jaundiced light. Whimpering from below.)

"I do," Otabek says.

"I don't," Yuri says.

"No, you do," Katsuki says without missing a beat. "Otabek would have taught you. Even if you never did get to play with the right number of players."

"Well, then, I don't wanna play," Yuri says, shoving at the tiles. "I'm sick of your stupid games. Just let us go already."

"Sure," Viktor says, leaning over the table, "If you win."

Yuri grinds his teeth. He growls and snatches the tile up, building the wall. "Fine," he snarls. "Beka, let's destroy them."

"Of course, there are penalties for the one with the lowest number of points at the end of each round," Viktor adds.

Otabek grimaces. Of course there would be a catch.

"What are they?" he asks. He's not going to make the same mistake as the first time.

"It depends on the open tiles," Viktor says.

"Hah? The fuck does that mean?"

"When you peng or chi and take a tile from the discard pile to make a set," Katsuki says, matching up three circle suits, numbered one-two-three, "You have to show the set you made. The tiles displayed by all players at the end of the game will determine the punishment."

Yuri furrows his eyebrows. "That makes zero sense."

Viktor smiles. "Well, you'll understand when we play. Then, let's all form our hand, shall we?"

They cut the wall, Katsuki drawing first based on their respective positions.

"Cat and the centipede," Katsuki says, laying out his bonus tiles in front of him. He sighs wistfully. "Ah, so close."

"Mouse," Yuri says.

"I call it a rat usually," Viktor says.

"Like I care," Yuri says. "You done replacing your tiles?"

Viktor holds up his hands. "I don't have any, unfortunately." He turns to Otabek. "Although you seem to be in more trouble than me." He leans over and runs his finger over the shapes cut into ebony. "You have almost every other flower," he says. "Except the one you really need," his gaze flickers over to Yuri, "The chrysanthemum."

It really is bad luck. Like this, he doesn't get any bonus points, and he can neither peng or win with a pinghu hand. His hands are tied (tighter than his ankles to the chair legs too). All he can do is hope for another bonus tile to come his way.

He studies his hand. He's got two north winds, but again it's neither his seat nor the wind of the round, so they're worthless, though he could use two to form a pair. With one white dragon in his hand, there's a possibility of a higher-scoring hand, but the chances of two baiban coming his way is even lower than hoping for a bonus tile late in the game. The rest of his tiles are nothing special, various suited tiles, some thankfully in sequence.

"1 bamboo," Katsuki says. He sets the tile marked with a sparrow on the centre of the table.

Viktor snatches up the tile and sets it down together with two other sparrow tiles from his hand. "Peng."

"Dammit," Yuri mutters. Only the first round and they've already skipped over his turn. Otabek glances over at Viktor. Doing a peng when he has no bonus tiles...is he betting on getting either a bonus tile or some other special combination later on in the game? That's risky. Are they cheating? He doesn't think so, but either way, Yuri and him are hugely disadvantaged. Yuri hasn't had the chance to practise a proper game with four players either.

Otabek has to win, and without making Yuri lose.

He draws a tile from the wall. 8 bamboo - good, he's already got the tiles 7 and 8 bamboo in his hands. This opens up a lot more options. As for the tile to discard - he checks the discard pile on the table - there's no chance of a peng happening with this tile anymore, and since Katsuki was the one who threw it down -

"1 bamboo," he says.

"Chi," Katsuki says. He picks it up and sets it down in sequence with two other tiles from his hand, one-two-three.

He was bluffing.

"Oi, you," Yuri says, glaring at Katsuki and Viktor. "You didn't rig this somehow, did you?"

"Why would we?" Viktor steeples his fingers together and smiles at Yuri. "The certainty of victory defeats the point of gambling." His gaze flickers over to Otabek. "The thrill of standing on the precipice between heaven and hell."

"Tch." Yuri draws a tile. His eyes light up - Otabek's lips quirk - he's really far too easy to read. Yuri slots it into place in his hand and discards an east wind. Worthless for him as well.

Otabek draws. 9 wan. Possibly useful, since he has two 8s, but keeping terminal tiles is always - well, it'll be more useful than the winds anyway. He discards a south wind.

"Peng," Katsuki says with a smile.

"Hah? Isn't your seat east? Or you forgot how to play, stupid?" Yuri snorts. "You wanna lose so bad?"

"There's no rule against it," Viktor says.

No, it just means it's a worthless combination that adds no value to Katsuki's hand. Unless he's already confident in building a high-scoring hand? Like this, Katsuki already has two sets made. What exactly is his hand like?

Katsuki discards a 9 wan. Yuri forms a consecutive set with his own 7 and 8.

"Good job," Katsuki says, smiling encouragingly.

"Fuck off," Yuri says, tossing down a 1 wan.

Viktor draws, and discards 8 bamboo.

8 bamboo. Otabek can form a peng set. But it won't help him if he doesn't get any better tiles further in the game.

Should he? Could he? He stares at his own tiles. Could Viktor be hiding a dragon set in his hand? Or something else even higher-scoring? If he has to make the gamble -

"Oh," Katsuki says quietly. "Hm - "

"Peng," Otabek says.

"Good job," Viktor says.

Otabek discards 7 bamboo. When nobody calls out, he lets out the breath he's been holding.

Within another three rounds, Yuri manages to form another meld. Viktor continues to keep his tiles hidden. Katsuki draws another bonus tile.

Otabek draws. 4 tong. Useful considering he has three other tong tiles. He bites his lip. He still hasn't managed to score any points, but somehow two green dragons have fallen into his hands. Which would make that tile redundant.

"Baiban," he says, throwing down the white dragon.

"Aaaaand peng!" Viktor says cheerfully. He pats the newly-acquired tile. "Aaahh I've been waiting for you for so long! I nearly gave up."

"Gross," Yuri mutters. "Crazy old man."

"Don't be jealous, Yuri," Viktor says, moving to ruffle Yuri's hand. Yuri ducks and shoves him away.

"Fuck off! Don't try and sneak a look at my tiles, you fucker!"

He's done it now. With the three dragons, Viktor's broken free of his leash. He can play so much more freely now. And by the look in Viktor's eyes, he knows exactly what he's going to do with it.

Otabek swallows. His throat is dryer than sandpaper. His hands won't stop shaking. His heart feels numbed by the force of its own abuse on his chest.

"Are you having fun, Otabek?" Katsuki asks with a smile.

"No way he can," Yuri snorts, "Playing with two of you losers."

Yuri seems more confident. He must have a better hand. If that's the case, it'll make much more sense for Otabek to support Yuri and help him win. As it is now, he's almost definitely in last place. But if at least Yuri can get out -

"Otabek?" Viktor nudges him. "It's your turn."

If he could guess the kind of tiles Yuri needed...But that would involve throwing fresh tiles, which might as well also be tiles that would help either Viktor or Katsuki win. And because he's not playing before Yuri, he can only help him get peng sets, whereas Katsuki would have far more options.

Shit. He never wanted to remember this feeling again.

He draws. 2 wan. Nobody's thrown that yet. He glances at his own hand, with no tiles from that suit. Apart from Yuri, nobody else has formed a meld with the wan suit either. There might be a chance -

"2 wan," he says, carefully watching Yuri's face.

Yuri glances back at his own hand. His tongue darts out as he studies his tiles, deep in concentration.

So almost helpful, but not quite.

They carry on for another few rounds, Otabek watching Yuri closely each time he discards a tile. Yuri's close to winning, he can tell. He just needs to give Yuri what he needs.

Otabek draws. East wind. It's a narrow hope, but there must be still one green dragon somewhere. It'll be bad to completely rely on Yuri too.

He discards the wind tile.

Katsuki draws and discards a red dragon.

Yuri snatches it up. "Peng," he says, throwing down two other red dragon tiles.

Otabek's heart jumps. He checks the number of tiles still in Yuri's hand - but more than that, the quirk to Yuri's lips and the rhythm his fingers beat out against their table. Yuri is grinning as he discards a 1 wan.

Katsuki picks it up and sets it down next to his open hand. "That's my win," he says, sounding almost apologetic.

Two green dragons. The _bastard_.

At the very least, it won't be Yuri -

"Leave him alone!" Yuri shouts. He struggles against the ropes. "He's not - " he turns to Otabek, a wild look in his eyes, "I tried to help, I thought - you can't - you can't hurt him! I'll kill you!"

No. That's - the whole time, he was watching Yuri, and he - _misunderstood_?

"Ah, no, you've got it wrong," Katsuki says. He holds up the cat tile. "You're the mouse, after all."

"Eh...?"

The chair clatters to the ground. Yuri thrashes, trying to free himself from the ropes. Katsuki takes a step and grinds his foot against Yuri's ribs as he clears the table.

"Stop it," Otabek says. "Stop it."

"Aw, but that's no fun," Viktor says. He lashes Otabek's hands together with rope behind his back. "A deal's a deal."

The penalty would be determined by the open tiles. They never specified which one.

"It was pointless from the beginning," Otabek says hoarsely.

Viktor cups Otabek's jaw and presses their lips together. He forces his tongue into Otabek's mouth, licking his way into Otabek, hot tongue where his hand is ice on Otabek's skin.

"That face of yours you make," Viktor says breathlessly, smiling, "Crushing your heart really turns me on too much."

Otabek clenches his fists. "You really think this is anything?" He laughs. His heart is so used to poison it runs freely in his veins.

"Hm." Viktor traces the line of Otabek's jaw. "I don't know if you can say the same for Yuri, though."

"Let him go," Otabek says.

"You lost, fair and square," Viktor says. He picks up a red dragon tile and smooths the pad of his thumb over the red zhong character. "Unless you want to gamble on Yuri again."

Otabek's heart stutters.

Viktor tips Otabek's chin upwards and leans in until his breath is hot against Otabek's lips. Like a real dragon. "Poker? Blackjack? Cheat? If you win and pay off Yurio's debt, you could save him."

Pay off Yuri's debt, as if he's not lived through the past decade in the shadow of his own.

"And if I lose - "

"Yurio pays."

Heaven and hell? Like they'd ever be let into heaven.

Hasn't this living been hell a while already...?

"Yuuri, do it."

"Wait! No - "

Katsuki slams Yuri against the table and skewers a short wooden spear through his palm to the underside of the table.

Yuri's eyes widen. He does not scream.

Katsuki picks up another one and runs it through Yuri's left hand. Blood spurts, seeping into the dead tree of the table, creeping towards the ivory-white tiles scattered across the surface like divinatory moon blocks, staining red the three tiles sitting before Otabek - 8 bamboo, 8 bamboo, 8 bamboo.

The table shakes with the force of Katsuki's movements. Some of the tiles roll away.

A chrysanthemum falls into his lap and opens its bone-white petals up towards him.

He's distantly aware of someone saying things. _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry_...who is that? Is it that person crying out again?

He can't see. Someone pulled out his eyeballs and dropped them into the water next to the goldfish.

He should take Yuri goldfish scooping next time there's a festival. Yuri would act as if it's a pain, but he'll take care of them.

Eh? No, wait, didn't he do that before? Weren't there two of them?

"Viktor, pass me Pochi will you?"

"Yes, your highness," Viktor says, as he hands Yuri a long, supple wooden stick.

"No," Yuri says. He struggles. "No, stop it."

"I'd advise against moving," Viktor says. He leans against the table and runs a finger where the bamboo meets Yuri's skin. "The shock and adrenaline means your ability to feel pain from the stab wounds right now is diminished. But if you aggravate your wounds, you'll definitely feel it later."

Yuri chokes on a sob. "Stop it."

The cane whips through the air and cuts into Yuri's back with a resounding snap. Yuri doesn't even have time to react before Katsuki hits him again, and Yuri chokes on his own saliva trying to scream.

"Yuri!" Otabek struggles against the ropes.

"Careful," Viktor says cheerfully. "If you tip over the table by accident - well, who knows what will happen."

Katsuki pulls his arm back and hits Yuri across his ass, jostling the table with the force of his blow. Yuri chokes and gurgles.

Otabek watches as Katsuki rains blows across the back of Yuri's thighs. Sometimes he even goes over the same places twice. The smile on his face doesn't waver a moment.

Ah, right, there were two of them, the goldfish. One of them bright yellow and orange, the other a deeper bronze colour speckled with white. Yuri named them Yura and Beka.

Yuri's sobbing, face pressed against the thin wooden table. His fingers twitch and spasm, unable to quite form fists. He's bleeding from where he's dug his nails hard into the table.

Katsuki tugs Yuri's shorts and underwear down. "Spread your legs," he says.

"C-can't," Yuri sobs.

Katsuki sighs, as if put out, and does it for him. Then the cane slams into him, over and over in quick succession.

"Ah, I'm a little out of practice," Katsuki says, setting the cane down beside Yuri. He smiles sheepishly. "Sorry."

"Fuck - you," Yuri chokes out.

Katsuki folds himself into seiza before Yuri. Yuri hisses as Katsuki runs his fingers over the angry red marks burned into his skin.

"Shh," Katsuki says. "I'm just checking how bad it is."

"Fucking bad, asshole," Yuri says. His hair is sticking to his forehead, damp with sweat, his eyes glazed over. He's shaking with the effort of trying to hold himself up.

"Just let him go already," Otabek says, digging his nails into his palms.

"In a moment, I promise!" Katsuki says, smiling at Otabek. He strokes the insides of Yuri's thighs and kisses them.

"Get away from him!" Otabek struggles again.

"Huh? I'm just kissing it better," Katsuki says. He licks a long stripe along the inside of Yuri's thigh. "Didn't your parents do this for you when you got hurt? Pain, pain, fly away."

Yuri squeezes his eyes shut. Tears are streaming down his face. "Beka," he whispers, voice cracking, "Uncle Beka, don't look."

"Yuri - "

"Don't look - ah!"

He jerks forward as Katsuki presses his lips to Yuri's swollen, bright red hole.

"No, no, no - "

He gasps as Katsuki flicks his tongue against him. Katsuki brings his hands up to squeeze Yuri's ass, drawing a pained whimper out of him, then spreads Yuri's ass, exposing his hole even more. He fucks into Yuri with his tongue.

"No, no, _no_ ," Yuri cries out between sobs, shaking, struggling to keep still and not scream and not move. "Stop it! I'll - I'll fucking kill you! Stop it!"

"Eh...you're wet and twitching down here though," Katsuki says. "You must really want it."

"The o-only thing I w-want is your head on a pl-plate!" Yuri gasps out.

"I'm not really into that kind of play." Katsuki pulls out a bottle and uncaps it with his teeth, squeezing lube out onto his fingers.

"What are you - what are you doing?" Otabek says.

" _Don't look!_ "

"Well, you just got hit there so this is probably going to hurt, but please bear with it," Katsuki says, and thrusts his fingers into Yuri.

Yuri screams. More blood spurts from his hands. "I'll fucking kill you! I'll kill you I'll kill you I'll kill you - "

What happened to the goldfishes anyway?

Katsuki scissors his fingers in and out of Yuri. Tremors rock Yuri's body. He slumps forwards, supported only by his elbows, sobbing.

Katsuki hums thoughtfully. "If I remember correctly...oh, here it is."

Yuri shudders. A strangled moan escapes his lips. "No, stop," he says, voice muffled.

"I'll stop, I'll stop," Katsuki says, and pulls back his fingers. Yuri's hips jerk. "Sorry."

Yuri presses his cheek against the table surface and sobs as Katsuki undoes his belt.

Katsuki licks the shell of Yuri's ear. "Sorry," he says. "This is going to hurt."

Yuri screams as Katsuki thrusts into him all the way to the hilt. He scrabbles for purchase on the table, shaking. His thighs grow slick with blood.

"Wow," Katsuki says. "You're really tight. It must hurt, doesn't it?"

"I-if you know it, th-then don't do it, stupid!" Yuri gasps out. "I'm gonna - you're dead, you're dead - "

Katsuki leans forward, pressing his chest flushed to Yuri, his lips right by Yuri's ear. He bites down. He grips the stake and drives it in deeper right as he thrusts into Yuri.

Yuri shrieks. Blood puddles across the table, making it practically impossible for him to grab onto anything. Katsuki slides his hands down the length of the stakes and laces his fingers with Yuri's bloodied ones.

"S-stop it," Yuri struggles to get the words out, "It - fucking - _hurts_ \- "

There were two of them. Beka and Yura. Because Yuri's mother wouldn't have allowed it, it was a secret in Otabek's room.

Katsuki traces the join of bamboo and skin and digs his nails into it, tears Yuri open on both ends.

"You're amazing, Yurio," Katsuki says. "So smart. So good at anything you set your mind to do. So pretty. So capable." He kisses Yuri's sweat-slick forehead. "You don't have to be capable all the time, though, you know? It's okay to rely on us once in a while."

The words drip down Otabek's spine like ice. Katsuki's gaze flickers to Otabek and his lips pull back in something that could be a smile.

Katsuki curls long fingers around the stake again and twists, corkscrewing into muscle and bone as he fucks Yuri, faster and harder.

He snatches up another stake and drives it towards Yuri's neck. Yuri freezes, mouth open in a silent scream, and Katsuki comes right as the blade teases a single bead of blood out of him.

He pulls out of Yuri. Blood and come trickle down thighs criss-crossed in welts. Yuri twitches as the run over his open wounds. He sobs.

What happened to the fishes...?

"You took your loss gracefully," Katsuki says, patting Yuri's head with a smile. "Good job."

"He needs to work on his poker face though," Viktor says. He puffs up his cheeks. "Yuuri, you totally ignored me the whole time!"

"Eh? Ah! Sorry, Viktor, I didn't mean to." Katsuki rubs the back of his neck, smiling sheepishly. "I just got caught up."

"That's no good." Viktor reaches forwards and pulls Katsuki in by his collar. He licks his lips. "I'll have you make it up to me."

"Of course," Katsuki says. He glances over his shoulder and tosses the small stake towards Otabek. "Sorry," he says, "I'll leave the cleaning-up to you?"

"Eh? Wha - wait - "

"There's a first-aid kit in the cupboard, thanks!"

The door slams shut and the lock turns into place with a click.

Yuri sobs. When he lifts his head, half his face is stained with blood, the other half with tears.

Ah. He remembers now. Potya knocked the fishbowl. Yuri cut his hands desperately fishing for dead fish in a sea of glass.


	14. Pharate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How many days has it been? Yuri's mental state already hasn't been the best, before, and now, with them thrown together like this, Yuri subjected to numerous tortures so refined - he's a jumble of broken bits held together by spit and cellophane tape.

It's late evening when Yuri wakes up. 

"Beka?" The futon rustles as he tries to sit up. A soft gasp escapes him.

"Careful," Otabek says, helping him up. "How do you feel?"

Yuri avoids his eyes. "Like shit."

His gaze falls upon his hands, bandaged from wrists to knuckles. He blinks. "Who...?"

Who? "Ah," Otabek coughs. "Me. Sorry, I had to make do with what we had."

Yuri turns his hand over, studying it, a bemused expression on his face. He attempts to form a fist, and grimaces. He sighs, drops his hands to his sides and gives Otabek a small smile.

"Thanks," he says. "Looks like you're taking care of me, even in this damn shithole."

Otabek looks away. "I'm - "

"Don't say it," Yuri says.

"I'm s - "

"Don't say it!" 

The shout echoes throughout the large, empty room. Yuri's legs shake for a moment, before they give out and he collapses back onto the sheets, cringing. 

"Don't move so suddenly," Otabek says. "You'll hurt yourself."

"Don't say stupid shit like that then," Yuri mutters, swiping at his nose with the back of his hand.

Otabek exhales shakily. "Are you hungry? Katsuki left lunch a while ago." He gestures at the neatly wrapped bento boxes set on the low table.

"You haven't eaten yet?" Yuri asks.

"I wanted to eat with you," Otabek says.

Yuri lifts his hands and half-heartedly attempts to wiggle his fingers. "That's gonna be a little difficult."

"Hm." Otabek takes the lid off the lunchbox labelled _Yurio_. He picks up a piece of what looks like fried chicken with the chopsticks and holds it out to Yuri.

"What."

"I'll feed you," Otabek says.

Yuri frowns. "I'm not a child."

"No, but you are injured," Otabek says.

"Then I'm not hungry."

Otabek sighs. "Yuri," he says, "If I were injured, you'd do the same for me, wouldn't you?"

"Tch." Yuri fidgets. "I guess."

"Be good - "

Yuri flinches.

"Sorry," Otabek says. 

Yuri stares at his feet. "No, it's - argh." He kicks Otabek lightly. "You gonna feed me or what?"

"Here comes the train - "

"I'll throw _you_ under a train," Yuri mutters. He snaps up the fried meat with his teeth as if to punctuate this point. His eyes widen, but then shutters quickly. 

"This tastes like shit," Yuri says. "What else is there?"

There are sausages cut into the shape of little octopuses, carrot slices cut out with cat stencils, apple slices shaped to look like little kittens. 

"What the fuck," Yuri says. "The fuck kinda joke...? What does yours look like?"

"Like a normal bento," Otabek says.

Yuri narrows his eyes. "Show me your bento."

"It's nothing, really," Otabek says. 

Yuri crosses his arms with a huff. "Show me or I won't eat anymore."

Otabek sighs. He lifts the box up towards Yuri. 

A character bento, with big, glistening hardboiled eyes, rosy cherry tomato cheeks, bright yellow egg rolls. Not as cute as its model.

"...sick," Yuri says. "The both of them. They're fucked." He glances up at the evening light pouring through the skylight. "We gotta get outta here before we get fucked up too."

It's a little too late for me, Otabek thinks with a grimace.

"We will," he says. He tries his best to sound reassuring. "But that means being strong enough to take the chance when it comes." He lifts a piece of sausage towards Yuri. "Which means you have to eat."

Yuri gives in. He closes his cracked, bleeding lips over the meat. His teeth click against each other as he chews. Like the sound of mahjong tiles rattling. Or bones.

"You should eat too," Yuri says, startling Otabek out of his thoughts.

"Right," Otabek says. He shields the contents from Yuri's view as he picks up a piece of rolled egg. It's the exact amount of sweetness he likes. He shudders as he swallows.

"By the way, Katsuki left some painkillers and water for you to take after you finish eating," he says.

"How thoughtful of him," Yuri mutters, words dripping in acid. He takes another bite of the meat Otabek holds up to him, chewing viciously.

Otabek spears a piece of bell pepper onto his chopsticks. "What exactly do they want...?" 

"How would I know?" Yuri says. Bits of food spew from his mouth.

"Don't talk with food in your mouth," Otabek says with a frown. He picks up a serviette and wipes Yuri's lips. "I thought you might understand them better. Since they're your teachers."

"In addition to being our kidnappers, you mean," Yuri says.

Otabek exhales. "Right," he says. "It was a stupid question. Sorry."

Yuri looks away. "Whatever," he mutters. He whips his head back to glare at Otabek. "More than that, Beka, did you think I wouldn't notice?"

"Huh?"

Yuri points accusingly at Otabek's lunchbox. "You're using a different set of chopsticks!"

A pair of plain black chopsticks rests across the lunchbox. Across the table, the ones balanced across Yuri's lunchbox are shorter, neon yellow printed with bright pink paw prints, topped with beaming plastic cat heads, along with the levers meant for teaching young children to use chopsticks.

Otabek coughs. "Well, to be hygienic - "

"Don't give me that." Yuri huffs and crosses his arms. "Goddammit, the both of them - I'll kill them."

"There was a torture method where you lined a pair of chopsticks up with a person's ear and then you - " he claps his hands to his ears, "Like that. And they'd go in."

Yuri wrinkles his nose. "Ew, gross, I'm eating!" 

They fall into silence once more, Otabek alternating between feeding Yuri and eating from his own lunchbox. It's good. He recognises a few of his favourite foods, and the seasoning is just the way he likes them. 

What the hell - wasn't there that saying, how the way to a man's heart is through his stomach? What the hell is Katsuki trying to do?

And Yuri's too. Fried chicken, pirozhski, baby carrots, potato salad.

They finish eating. Yuri doesn't leave a crumb uneaten. 

Otabek pours a glass of water from the sink. He holds the pills out to Yuri.

"I bet that twisted fuck actually gave me sugar pills or some shit and called 'em painkillers," Yuri says. He swallows. "Or something else."

"It's possible." Otabek nods. "He said it was your winnings."

"Fuck." Yuri's hands twitch by his side. Tears prick at his eyes. Can you call this mercy? Such a refined form of cruelty.

"Yuri - "

Yuri swallows them dry. Otabek's palm feels hot where soft lips grazed them. 

"Whatever," Yuri says. He flops back down onto the mattress, not quite able to hide his wince. His eyelids flutter shut.

He looks thinner, unsurprisingly. Even his eyes, surrounded by dark shadows, seem faded in colour, filmy chlorine dissolving in some public pool. He could be a ghost, from how pale his skin is, blue and black flowers indehiscent across his skin sprawling with rust-red vines while acidic shadows work their way slowly to his bone. 

No. The shadows aren't stopping. They sink their claws into the sockets of his fading eyes, their maws into his translucent flesh. Oily and slick, they slip up his shirt, down his pants, force his legs apart and lick up his tears - 

"Beka?"

"Yura," Otabek says, watching the black fire flicker, "I can't see."

"What...?"

"I can't see," he says, feeling the words vibrate in his chest and pass through his lips. "I can't see anything."

A body collides with his. Yuri smells like his clothes. "Don't kid around with me!" 

"I'm not," Otabek says. 

Yuri starts to shake. "No, no, no," he says. "No, this isn't happening."

There's a click, the rush of air, and footsteps. "Evening," Katsuki says. "Was dinner alright?"

"Katsudon, you bastard!" Yuri struggles to get to his feet. "The fuck did you do?"

"Eh? Ah, well, Viktor said you didn't like beans so I tried to hide them in the rolls, was it no good after all - "

"What the fuck did you do to Beka?" Yuri yells. "He says he can't see."

"That must be because you're blindingly radiant, Yurio," Katsuki says, padding towards them.

Yuri growls. "Stop fucking around - "

Katsuki leans over Otabek's shoulder and sniffs. "Oh," he says. "Ah, whoops. Sorry. I think I might have mixed up the soy sauce and methanol."

Yuri snarls. He shifts, body tensing like a spring - 

Otabek grabs onto him. Where, he's not sure exactly. "Yura," he says. "Don't. You're hurt."

"Really, I'm sorry!" Katsuki says. "It was a mistake." 

"Fix it," Yuri bites out. "Fix it and I might leave your entrails inside you when I actually fucking kill you."

Katsuki laughs. "Don't worry," he says brightly. "It's happened to me sometimes - you wouldn't believe how clueless Viktor is in the kitchen - it's easy to fix. I'll just get Viktor and we'll pop down to town to get some supplies for Otabek." He squeezes Otabek's shoulder. "I'm really sorry about this, Otabek."

Methanol. A type of methanol. Depending on the concentration and time afflicted, a possible risk is permanent blindness.

"We'll be back soon," Katsuki says, footsteps retreating in the distance. "Yurio, take care of Otabek, okay?"

"I'll kill them," Yuri mutters. "I'll kill them."

He can hear Yuri's heart, beating furiously in the small chest opposite his. The drip-drip-drip of a leaking tap somewhere in the building. Air ambling down the corridors. 

"Yura," Otabek says, keeping his voice low, "Is the door locked?"

Sharp inhale. "What are you saying - "

"Yura," Otabek repeats, more urgently, " _Is the door locked_?"

Long pause. "I don't know if I can - "

"Hold onto me," Otabek says. He sways, once, twice, and gets to his feet. There's something terrifying about that, being subject to gravity's capriciousness when you can't see a single thing.

Yuri's weight against him, his heartbeat and warmth, anchors him. He takes a breath and takes a step forward. 

"Ah, stop," Yuri says quietly. He leans forward, still pressed against Otabek, and pushes with his body.

The door creaks.

It's unlocked.

Otabek's heart kicks into high gear. "Yura," he says, "This is your chance. There's nobody else here. You can escape."

Yuri swallows. He finds Otabek's hand and paws at it uselessly. "You're - you're coming too, right?" he says, voice small.

"This place should be close to the road," Otabek continues. "If you can find the main road - "

Yuri stomps on his toe. "Beka!" he says. "I'm not leaving without you."

Ah. He's on the edge of tears, probably.

"It's already getting dark," Otabek says calmly. "I'll only slow you down."

"I don't care," Yuri says fiercely. "I'm not leaving you with - with _them_."

"I'll be fine. They won't kill me, not when they've had so many chances - "

"No," Yuri says. He burrows into Otabek's chest and sniffles. "No, they might just let you go blind."

He was trying not to think of that possibility. 

"They'll punish you," Yuri says, hysteria creeping into his voice. "If I make them unhappy they'll punish you - "

_Just like they punished me._

"Yura, Yura, shh," Otabek says. He hugs Yuri close to his chest. He swallows and tries to keep the trembling out of his voice. "It's okay. I'll do anything to keep you safe. You can get out of here."

Yuri shakes his head. He sobs. "But," he says, "But I can't - I can't do it without you."

The realisation is a bot of lightning through his system. 

How many days has it been? Yuri's mental state already hasn't been the best, before, and now, with them thrown together like this, Yuri subjected to numerous tortures so refined - he's a jumble of broken bits held together by spit and cellophane tape.

A trembling, small hand cups Otabek's jaw. Yuri swallows. "Uncle Beka," he says brokenly, "I need you."

_What have you done, Otabek Altin?_

His knees buckle underneath him. He sways, but steadies himself with his hold on Yuri's battered shoulders. 

His lungs whistle as he exhales. "Close the door," he says.

It shuts with more finality than he's ever heard from Katsuki or Viktor.

Yuri leans back on him. Nudging him in the right direction, they make their way back to the tiny alcove and settle down on the futon. 

What now, Otabek wonders. What now. 

"I won't let you go blind, Beka," Yuri says. "I'll kill the bastards and burn this whole place to the ground before I let it happen."

Otabek laughs hollowly. "Forget blind," he says, "I'll die if you do that."

Yuri huffs and flops back against Otabek's chest. Then he sits up. There's a rustling of sheets as he adjusts his position. A small hand rests over his.

"You're shaking," Yuri says.

"It's a little cold," Otabek says.

He's fine with dying. But even if he were to lose his sight, he doubts Viktor and Katsuki would go easy on him. In fact, it'll open up a whole new world of possibilities for them. They won't even need blindfolds anymore.

"Hey, remember how you used to listen to me read aloud my books from school?" Yuri says.

"Yeah," Otabek says. He can almost feel the syrupy afternoon sunshine warming his skin, the smell of old books and dust, that clear, powerful voice bending the atoms in the air to his will.

"I think - they should be somewhere - turn a little to your left," Yuri says.

Otabek obeys.

"Scoot a little bit forward - okay, stop. If you reach forward - push the curtain away - there. Which one do you want?"

Otabek traces the deep crease along the spine of the book under his hand. "What books are there?"

A beat. "Most of them - are the books I had to use in school," Yuri says.

Of course. 

"Pick something new then," Otabek says lightly.

"Okay. Then - move your hand a little to the left - too much, back - yeah. That one."

It's a slim book that barely weighs anything in his hands, the cover a smooth surface but for the centre where the embossed title push insistently against his fingers. "What book is this?"

"'Justine'," Yuri says. "No idea what it's about, though."

A warm weight presses against his chest as Yuri settles into his lap. Otabek swallows. "Yura, what are you doing?"

"How else am I supposed to read to you?" Yuri says. He elbows Otabek in the stomach. "Stop complaining and open the book already."

He lets the book fall open to a random page in his hands. Otabek replays in his mind the sight he's only seen too many times: Yuri raising that lily-white hand to push gold hair behind a perfectly-shaped ear, clearing his throat, and pursing rosebud lips around a sound like a flower of blown glass.

"'Take the slut, Antonin,' he said, 'and as you strip her and we look on, teach her that compassion has no claim upon men like us.'" 

Otabek startles. "Yuri, what - "

"He seized me in his arms and, spicing word and action with appalling oaths, took less than two minutes to throw off my clothes and expose my nakedness to the gaze of the assembled company," Yuri reads on, in that carefully measured voice of a spring breeze flirting with wind chimes.

He wriggles in Otabek's lap, adjusting his position. Inadvertedly he brushes up against Otabek, who bites down on his lip. 

"And the wicked man, placing me on a couch in an attitude propitious to his execrable pleasures and ordering Antonin and Clement to hold me fast, this Raphael, a friar and thoroughly depraved, satisfied his impure desires but left me still a maid." 

...arms tied above his head, chest pressed against a cold wall, biting his lip in a desperate attempt to stifle his cries as a cock thrusts between his pretty thighs, only ever grazing his pink and twitching hole.

"He ordered me to kneel and, clasping me close as I crouched, assuaged his perfidious passions in such a way that during the sacrifice I was denied the power of protesting at the irregularity of his procedure."

...on his knees, silken hair falling in a mess over his eyes, nails digging bloody crescents in his own thighs as he chokes on a thick cock, ropes of drool and pre-come mixing with the pearlescent tears clinging to his heated skin, pleas for mercy drowned out as he chokes on come.

"To crown their impiety, the libertines required Florette to appear at supper dressed in all the Virgin's finery, the costume which had brought her such homage, and each inflamed his odious desires by subjecting her, she still wearing the same vestments, to his lewd whims. They then made her lie face down, unclothed, upon a large table, lit candles, placed a figure of Our Lord next her head, and dared celebrate the most awful of our mysteries upon her bare back."

...spread out on a table alongside apples of gold, blood-red pomegranates, meats skewered on sticks, gluttony plated and made fine, pure white skirt rucked up around pale thighs fruited with bruises, slender back painted in lashes, come, and the burning wax of altar candles.

"'I shall come for you myself as darkness falls'." Yuri pauses to rest his head against Otabek's shoulder, his hair tickling Otabek's chin. He inhales, exhales, and Otabek never realised how much he appreciates the sound of Yuri's continued existence. On impulse, he drops a kiss on (he hopes) Yuri's forehead.

"Beka?" Yuri turns in his lap. 

"Sorry," he mutters. He's glad he can't see whatever expression Yuri must be wearing now. "I - "

Soft lips meet his, sweet as peaches and as easily bruised, sugary sticky juices exploding in his mouth if he so much as grazed his teeth against that fragile skin. But it's only for a second and the heat of it makes its absence almost chilling. 

"S-sorry," Yuri says. He sounds absolutely _broken_ , throat clogged with thorns and broken glass. "Sorry, Sorry - "

"It's fine," Otabek says dazedly, mind a whirl. Will Yuri leave him alone if he rejects him now? The thought seizes him with more fear than the possibility of permanent blindness.

Yuri kisses Otabek again. Otabek kisses him back. He tastes like downfall and as sweet.

"Sorry," Yuri says breathlessly. "My hands - I can't - let me - " he slides down the length of Otabek's body, and mouths at Otabek's hardness through his pants before gripping the zipper between his teeth.

"W-wait," Otabek gasps out through the fog in his head. "Wait."

How long have they been here already? Far too long. Haven't there been entire gardens razed to the ground by disease?

"You don't want to?" Yuri asks, voice small. 

"It's not that." He swallows. "I just. I want to hold you. Can we stay like that for a while?"

There's a pause. Yuri climbs back into his lap and wraps matchstick-thin arms around Otabek's shoulders. His eyelashes flutter against Otabek's neck.

"Isn't the moon beautiful?"

"Yeah," Otabek says quietly. "It is."

***

The silence is shattered by slow clapping and footsteps. "That was so sweet," Viktor says. "Ah, young love."

Yuri scrambles out of Otabek's lap. "Where is it?" he demands. "Help him!"

"Patience," Viktor says. There's a rustle of bags and the clink of glass. Viktor grabs Otabek's hands and wraps Otabek's fingers around a cup. 

"Drink," he says.

He really should have learnt his lesson from the last time. When he wakes up again it is dawn, only enough light to illuminate Yuri's sleeping form beside him, lips closed around a fist, face stained with tears, fresh bruises on his thighs. 

His own body aches with the memory of a burn he doesn't remember sating.


	15. Exuvia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "So now, here's your choice," Katsuki says, as he gets to his feet. "Are you going to turn me into a demon to help you hunt down the others?"

"You're the demon," Katsuki says, crushing Otabek's shoulder beneath his hand, lips right by Otabek's ear. "You are it."

When he spins around, heart pounding, Katsuki is already gone, and the door wide open. 

When he woke up, Yuri was already gone and Katsuki swinging his legs from where he was perched on the table. And now he's alone in the room.

This could be the chance they were waiting for (for now, let's not think too hard about who are _they_ ). The door is open, nobody is in sight, all he has to do is find Yuri and get them out of here. 

He almost falls over in his haste to exit the room. "Yuri!" he calls out. "Yuri, where are you?"

His voice echoes endlessly throughout the labyrinthine corridors. Where the hell could he be at a time like this? Otabek clenches and unclenches his fist by his side, feeling the chance slip through his fingers like grains of sand with every second that passes.

He doesn't dare risk calling Yuri's name a second time. If either Viktor or Katsuki hears, there will be...consequences. He'll have to search for Yuri himself.

The study where he first came across Yuri. Sometimes Yuri vanishes like a dream in the middle of the night, reappearing in the mornings with a strained smile and more bandages than before. It's possible Viktor's - _overrun_ today.

The estate has a ridiculous number of rooms with the same heavy, wooden doors attached, but it's an easy task to tell them apart - the ones with _help_ scratched into the wood by bleeding fingernails; the ones with unsettling stains across them; the ones with knives and bullets driven through them. 

He pauses as he passes a staircase. If he strains his ears, he hears what sounds like shallow, ragged breathing. 

"Yuri?" he whispers. No answer.

Maybe he's been gagged and tied up. He gets on his knees and squeezes into the narrow space beneath the stair.

A musty dampness soaks through his trousers to his knees. His heart skips a beat. He violently halts his thoughts right there, groping around in the darkness for some other contrary thing.

A growl reverberates through his bones. His fingers brush against knife-sharp teeth.

He drags it into the light - the spasming body of a golden retriever foaming around a bloody red fish clamped in its jaw. 

Poison, Otabek thinks numbly. Maybe the fish - 

A red herring.

It crashes back down onto him. He fists his fingers in the dog's fur and grinds his teeth. He forgot for a moment, dared to _hope_ like the fool he is. He really doesn't learn. 

Freedom is just another stake in a game for them, isn't it?

The dog whimpers. It makes a feeble attempt to kick out its hind leg. 

"I'm sorry," Otabek says softly, running his hands through the dog's fur. It's perfectly groomed, a deep, gold colour, soft and thick. Finding it mangy and scarred would have been far less disturbing. 

A slow-acting poison, some kind of paralytic. Muffled beneath the staircase, it would have provided a reasonable mimicry of a panicked human for at least a few hours. 

He stands up and looks around. His gaze lands on a paperweight, a Grecian-like sculpture of a boy reclining against a base, nude. It's about the size of his fist, and fairly heavy in his hands. 

Blood splatters over his feet. The dog stills.

He's the demon and here are the hounds. So where are the rest of the souls he's to drag back to hell with him? 

If it's a game he still has a shot of winning.

Otabek puts another two dogs out of their misery before he finds him, crouched under a pile of fresh laundry, a glimmer of gold around a pale wrist. None of the clothes here would fit any of them. 

"I guess you found me," Katsuki says, sitting up and rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. "Good job."

"Where is Yuri?" he says, his grip tightening around the paperweight behind his back.

"Hiding," Katsuki says.

" _Where_?"

Katsuki blinks at him. "I don't know?" he says. "It's pointless to all hide at the same place, after all." He peels a stray sock off his shoulder. "By the way, please be careful with Acchan, someone gave it to Viktor for a Christmas present."

Otabek tenses. What the hell? Is there no getting past these monsters?

"So now, here's your choice," Katsuki says, as he gets to his feet. "Are you going to turn me into a demon to help you hunt down the others?"

If he sends Katsuki to go find Viktor, he might be able to keep the two of them busy while he gets Yuri and breaks the two of them out of here. But that's _if_ he finds Yuri before Katsuki. And Katsuki's far better at playing demon than Otabek is.

"Where's Viktor?" he asks.

"I don't know," Katsuki says. 

If that's the case, then -

Otabek swallows. "What about a game?" he asks.

"Ah, sorry," Katsuki says, raising his hand. "I'm not really into that kind of thing like Viktor - "

"Viktor's already agreed though," he says, heart pounding. 

Katsuki cocks his head. "So you found him already?"

"You don't know where he is," Otabek says. "I bet him I could find Yuri before he could find you."

Katsuki sighs. "Knowing him, he wouldn't be able to turn down a challenge like that." He folds his arms. "So, I'm supposed to go hide again?"

"Yes," Otabek says. "I'm confident the - what we have between us is stronger than what binds the two of you."

Katsuki's eyes harden. "We'll see about that," he says with a smile.

Hook, line, sinker. That'll keep Katsuki occupied for a while. In the event he finds Viktor before Katsuki, he'll just tell Viktor the same thing. 

Of course, there's no reason for him to trust Katsuki's words. But so far he's never seen either of them use phones or any of the like while in the estate. From the way they act, they consider each other rivals of some sort as well. He can't think of any reason for Katsuki to pretend to agree to his challenge too, if he knew from the start he hadn't found Viktor.

Fucking hell. Is this the kind of things that goes through their minds every day? How to bend and break people into toys for their amusement? 

He's different, though. This is for Yuri.

He scours the huge house. They must have prepared days for this. When he catches a glimpse of blonde in the crack of a door, he rushes forward only to find a hyper-realistic sex doll dressed in a button-down shirt and a pleated skirt, a red herring pinned to its chest by a steak knife.

His stomach roils. That's Yuri's school uniform. 

His hand seems to move disconnected from his brain as it reaches out, fingertips brushing against gold hair that feels far too real. 

What was that saying? All that glitters isn't gold? But in an endless, purgatorial vision of grey, how else do you see what's real?

When he slaughters the next few dogs, he swears their eyes turn green before going dark.

Red spills out across the sky. He stumbles outside - he's checked all the rooms in the house, he thinks, he doesn't want to imagine going again. 

His foot catches on a root. Dirt fills his nose and eyes as he hits the ground. Through the shroud of dust, he sees it shimmer.

On his knees he paws through the soil like the dogs he'd put down. His eyes water as specks of dirt fly past him in his frenzy, but he ignores them. There's still time. He'll get Yuri out of here - 

"Good job, demon," Viktor says, peeling a mask off his face. 

His face is speckled with dirt, his clothes funerary white under the soil and burrs. 

Otabek grabs Viktor by the collar and yanks him up. " _Where is Yuri_?" he snarls.

"You haven't found him yet?" Viktor smiles and cocks his head. "I'll help you look."

Otabek's fingers slip. The challenge is clear enough in his eyes.

_And if I find Yuri first…_

He scrambles to get away from Viktor. Blindly charges his way through the door back into house, anything to put some distance between him and those footsteps and that man's not even playing the game right, _he's_ the demon - 

There's still a chance. The voice chanting in his head is something from a dream. He just has to find Yuri. Yuri, Yuri, Yuri.

It's only a shadow in the corner of his eye. He didn't think much of it the first time. Small, narrow, squashed into the corner, rickety - the closet looks like it could collapse anytime.

That trembling, wet-nosed snuffling.

He reaches for the knob.

The dark and fust of a wet womb. Dusty dress falling placental over a foetal shadow. Evening light penetrates the lacuna ever-widening as he pulls back the door. Skin pale and leathery, shrunken-in beneath stained clothes. A perfect head of black and the brick-red blotch that ruins it. 

The body falls onto the floor. A once-white button-down is open to an even more open chest. Black slacks hobble torn ankles. 

His hand is unexpectedly steady when he raises it for the ring on his finger to catch on the light glinting off the identical silver band on the corpse.

"Uncle Beka?" 

His bloody lips are almost as slick as his thighs.

"I thought," Yuri says, distantly, "That we were playing Seven Minutes in Heaven."

(You're it.)


	16. Frass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ragged paper crackles under Yuri's grip. "I'll drag you down," he says.

They have to escape before they lose (what's left of) their minds.

"Go without me," Yuri says without looking up from the book in his hands.

"We're leaving together," Otabek says.

The ragged paper crackles under Yuri's grip. "I'll drag you down," he says.

"I am not leaving you," Otabek says.

The book drops onto his chest as Yuri kicks his legs out to hook them over Otabek's shoulder. Otabek catches Yuri's ankle as Yuri slides forward and swings his right foot towards Otabek's face. The skin shredded into red ribbons.

("I said crawl," Viktor says.

"Yeah? I said fuck you," Yuri says hoarsely. "Or are you deaf too, old man?"

Viktor smiles. "You don't know how to crawl?" Silver catches on the sick yellow light as he flicks a knife out.

"Don't worry. I'll make sure you don't forget.")

"It'll be faster if you go on your own," Yuri says, avoiding Otabek's eyes. "I can buy you time."

His hand is trembling.

Otabek can't forget that sight - cracked green jade eyes set in that porcelain face, his arm dangling between his knees, rogue red and leathered skin set beneath sharp fingernails; limbs loose and falling open, crushed lily between his thighs. Neck crooked, unable to support the weight of his thoughts.

Yuri drops his foot back over Otabek's shoulder. They're gazelle legs, made for running and mating and dancing. They're ruined.

("He was the one who came crying to us first," Katsuki says, smiling fondly as he stands in the middle of the kitchen with an apron around his waist and flips an egg.

If he had run faster. Shouted louder. Tried harder - )

He reaches forward and cups Yuri's jaw between his hands. "I'm getting us out of here."

Yuri's lower lip trembles. He pulls Otabek closer until Otabek's practically straddling him. Mangled fingers reach for his hair, then hesitate.

"Promise?" And his eyes are parodyingly petulant, even as desperation maul his words.

"Promise," Otabek says.

***

The chain loops around Viktor's pale skin, silvered neck to goldfinger. Viktor chokes and gurgles as Otabek ransacks his pockets with hands that won't stop shaking.

He yanks out the key. "Is this it?"

Yuri doesn't look away from the white-knuckled hold he has around the metal chains.

"Yuri!"

He blinks. "Y-yeah," he says, grip slackening slightly. "Yeah."

Otabek fits the key into the lock above Yuri's collarbone. His knees nearly give out from relief when he hears it click into place. He pulls the restraint off of Yuri's neck and turns on his heel.

He's two steps away from the open door when he realises Yuri isn't following.

"Yuri, what are you - "

His eyes are floodlit behind red veins, face flushed like an apple, cracked lips twisted in a smile as Viktor twitches and flails in his arms.

"Yuri!" Otabek says. "We have to go!" 

Yuri jolts, blinking. Viktor slides to the ground, coughing. The sound of him rasping seems to snap Yuri out of it. 

His blood pounds in his ears almost as loud as his feet against the ground. The walls blur past them. Already he can hear shouting and movement. 

This house is closer to the road than the one he was in, before. All they have to do is make it to the road. 

His body seems to collapse into a single point gouging a path out through the air; eyes, ears, nose all superfluous. Blood thins in his veins as they fray and unravel around him.

By some fucking freak of luck, the front door is open. 

"B-Beka!"

"It's right there!" he shouts, not daring to waste the time it would take to turn back. He doesn't need eyes to sense Yuri's presence, anyway. The entirety of his body has been attuned to it, enough that he can do without an organ or a limb by Yuri's side. "We're close!"

The grass snapping under his feet sends a thrill throughout him. He's here, he's still here, an existence being acknowledged by the world. They couldn't take that away from him.

"Un - hah - Uncle Beka!"

"Yura," he says, panting. "Yura, we're getting out."

The ground falls away to gravel. The slap of his feet against the road rings in his ears louder than a heartbeat.

"Beka, Be - hah - Beka! W-wait!"

Lights in the distance, air the collective breathing, shadows without eyes. The rest of the world condensed into a single raindrop running across the windshield of his cataracts.

"Yura, we're almost there! Hurry!"

He never cried. Doesn't think he has, since the day Mila was hospitalised. But right now, on the edge of hell, the lights blur into a halo past the wetness in his eyes.

This time, Yuri is by his side.

His entire body attuned to Yuri's existence. He'll hear Yuri's voice over a ballroom song, a tuneless anthem, a marching band. 

Over a screech of tires and shattering glass.

"Beka, wait - !"

***

The night baby Yura asphyxiated on a chain of blood, Otabek's face was a perfectly-cracked dinner plate run under a tap. The image branded itself into Yuri's retinas. 

When he unravels them with opening eyes, time turns back on itself.

"Yura," Otabek is saying, over and over, his large hands clutching Yuri's so hard it almost hurts. "Yura, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yura, don't go."

He thinks he hears Sinatra, in the beep-beep-beep of the heart monitor.

He locks their fingers together.

"I won't," he rasps. "We'll be together always."

Over the top of _Justine_ , Yuuri smiles. 

Otabek doesn't see Yuri smirk back.


	17. Isomorph

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When he bursts through the door, all is whiteness but for a flash of gold.

The corridor is endless in its whiteness. His heart is beating so loud that in his blurred vision he sees his veins spasm amidst the peeling plaster. The slam of the soles of his feet against concrete reverberates throughout him and the entire building.

When he bursts through the door, all is whiteness but for a flash of gold.

"Yuri!" 

He wheezes, hands on his knees, each breath of cold air a knife through his ribs. Yuri continues to like cat pictures on Instagram. 

"Sorry I'm late," he says, finally catching his breath. "Prof wouldn't let me go." He worries at his lip, glancing at Yuri nervously. "You're not gonna be late for the recital, right?"

Yuri shrugs. "S'fine," he says. He tugs at his oversized, puffy coat. "Already wearing my costume underneath it."

"Shoes?"

"In my bag," Yuri says, lifting the messenger bag in question. He slides his phone back into his pocket. "Can we go now?"

"Okay." 

He rubs his hands together, already half-numb from the biting cold. Maybe if he's sneaky enough, he could get Yuri to hold his hand. Yuri keeps his shoved into his pockets, drumming against his thigh to a rhythm only he can hear as he kicks snow away from the pavement.

Conversation, right. "Are you nervous?" 

Yuri scoffs. "It's my own choreography, I could dance it in my sleep. Blindfolded. With two hands tied behind my back."

"Not what I meant," he says, grinning, "But it's great that you're confident."

Yuri raises an eyebrow. "Minami," he says, "Are _you_ nervous?"

"Um, no." He laughs nervously and fidgets. "Um. Is your uncle gonna be there? The scary one?"

"Uncle Beka?" Yuri says, with that soft look in his eyes he always has when Otabek comes up. "Yeah. And my guardians."

"Both of them," Minami says.

"You seriously could stand to chill a little," Yuri says with a scowl.

"I'm meeting your family for the first time," Minami squeaks. "Of course I'm going to be nervous! What if they don't like my clothes? What if I mess up their names? Oh god, what if I'm late?"

Yuri sighs and pushes his sleeve back. Unclouded sunlight ricochets off a clunky, gold watch that swallows the whole of his slender wrist. 

"We've got a whole hour," he says. He glares at Minami. "Now seriously, chill."

"What if they hate me?" Minami whines.

Yuri smiles.

"Don't worry," he says. "They'll love you."


End file.
